SPIRITISM 

A Study of Its Phenomena and 
Religious Teachings 



TH. GRAEBNER 




CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE 

SAINT LOUIS, MO. 




Class jj 

Book 

Copyright N°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



\/ 



SPIRITISM 



A Study of Its Phenomena and 
Religious Teachings 



By 
TH. GRAEBNER • 
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo. 




ST. LOUIS, MO. 
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE 

1919 






Copyright, 1919 
Concordia Publishing House j/ 



FEB 2 1 1920 -' 



v 



©CI.A559784 v 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER ONE. 
A British Invasion.— „ _ 



PAGE 



CHAPTER TWO. 
The Origin of Modern Spiritism 13 

CHAPTER THREE. 
Mediumship and Its Phenomena 22 

CHAPTER FOUR. 

The Great Niblo and His Rivals.- - _ _._ 33 

CHAPTER FIVE. 
Science and the Seance 45 

CHAPTER SIX. 
Miasmas from the Pit.. „ _._ 73 

CHAPTER SEVEN. 
Some Questions Answered. 101 

CHAPTER EIGHT. 
Doctrines of Demons 112 



THE ROAD TO ENDOR 

BY RUDYARD KIPLING 



(A son of Rudyard Kipling was reported missing in the war. 
The poet did not seek consolation from Spiritistic mediums, like 
some of his famous British contemporaries, but wrote the follow- 
ing poem, which hits off the mediumistic contortions for money 
and at the same time warns against ' ' the sorrows in store ' ' for 
those who go down the road to ±mdor.) 

The road to Endor is easy to tread 

For mother or yearning wife. 
There, it's sure, we shall meet our dead 

As they were even in life. 
Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store 
For desolate hearts on the road to Endor. 

Whispers shall comfort us out of the dark — 

Hands — ah, God! — that we knew! 
Visions and voices — look and hark! — 

Shall prove that our tale is true, 
And that those who have passed to the further shore 
May be hailed — at a price — on the road to Endor. 

But they are so deep in their new eclipse, 

Nothing they say can reach, 
Unless it be uttered by alien lips 

And framed in a stranger's speech. 
The son must send word to the mother that bore, 
Through an hireling's mouth. 'Tis the rule of Endor. 

And not for nothing these gifts are shown 

By such as delight our dead. 
They must twitch and stiffen and slaver and groan 

Ere the eyes are set in the head 
And the voice from the belly begins. Therefore, 
We pay them a wage where they ply at Endor. 

Even so, we have need of faith 

And patience to follow the clue. 
Often, at first, what the dear one saith 

Is babble, or jest, or untrue. 
(Lying spirits perplex us sore 
Till our loves — and our lives — are well known at Endor.) 

Oh, the road to Endor is the oldest road 

And the craziest road of all! 
Straight it runs to the Witch's abode, 

As it did in the days of Saul, 
And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store 
For such as go down on the road to Endor! 

4 



CHAPTER ONE. 

A British Invasion. 

IT has been truthfully said that the dangers to true 
Christianity which operate through the new Spiritist 
propaganda "do not lie in the force and reasonableness 
of its claims, but in the state of the public mind, which, 
as we all know, is but too receptive just now of a 
fascinating form of thought of this kind." 

The time is propitious for the preachers of com- 
munion with the dead. Five years have filled the world 
with mourners. The sense of loss still oppresses them, 
and the yearning to recall the lost is still poignant. 
Thousands of such people will listen to an accomplished 
gentleman like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the "will 
to believe ' ' his teaching that their lost sons can and will 
speak to them from their dwelling-places in happier 
spheres. The genuine Christian has learned to say in 
his bereavement: "Thy will be done!" The believing 
dead, he knows, are in the presence of their Savior. 
But the mourner who has no true Christian faith has 
little other consolation than to nurse his grief. To 
such the claims of Spiritism, with its promise of con- 
tinued communication with the dead, offer a solace 
which some of them do not refuse. 

And Spiritism is not neglecting the opportunities 
presented to it by the ravages of the war. The press 
at the present time shows what an interest is being 
taken in the subject. The publication of Sir Oliver 
Lodge's book Raymond helped very materially to direct 



b A BRITISH INVASION. 

the attention of the general public to the subject of 
communication with the world beyond, and of inter- 
course with spirits that inhabit it. Sir William F. 
Barrett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and other prominent 
men, have made renewed public acts of faith in the 
reality of psychic phenomena. 

Famous publishing-houses, both in this country and 
in England, have sensed the state of the public mind 
very quickly, and are now publishing more volumes on 
this subject than in any other department of literature 
except fiction. A large English publishing-house, which 
has a very active firm representing its interests in this 
country, announced in one of its recent clip-sheets no 
less than ten volumes on Spiritism, ranging from one 
dollar to three dollars and a half in price. At the head 
of the list there is a book by a famous British novelist 
and essayist. . The publisher characterizes this work as 
containing "personal and convincing evidence of a 
continuation of life hereafter." W. T. Stead's After 
Death is brought out in a new edition, and is said to 
represent "one of the strongest links of evidence for 
the survival of man's spirit after death." 

Next a biography is listed as "the life story of a 
man who attributed his ability very largely to the fact 
that he was in constant communication with the other 
world. A book that convinces because of its very evi- 
dent sincerity." A fourth title is announced in the 
following terms: "Probably no other volume on man's 
immortality has created such a profound sensation. 
An indispensable work for all who would thoroughly 
investigate the subject." A fifth: "A clear call from 
the beyond in a series of authentic communications. 
The messages came quite unsought, and supply very 
comforting and convincing evidence of the reality of 
life hereafter." Of a sixth it is said that its treatment 



A BRITISH INVASION. 7 

of the relation of psychic investigation to religion "is 
particularly illuminating and helpful." Of a seventh: 
These "documents in evidence" (Mr. Hill's) "furnish 
what seems to be unquestionable evidence of survival 
after death." Next a "complete history of the rise and 
progress of Spiritualism. ' ' A ninth : a " clear, sane dis- 
cussion of the fundamentals, and religious and scientific 
claims, of Spiritualism. ' ' The tenth is the autobiography 
of ' ' one of the world 's greatest psychics, ' ' and is said to 
offer "a wealth of incontestable proof of survival after 
death. Bemarkable experiences with the spirit world 
are recounted with dramatic power and convincing 
clearness." These ten books are the output of a 
single British firm within the last year or two. 

Another publishing-house of great international 
repute offers the following in its latest advertising 
folder: 1. The work of one who "has been for years 
a lecturer in the Municipal Technical Institute of Bel- 
fast, his point of view is distinctly scientific, and likely 
to command the widest attention." 2. "Dr. C. believes, 
and regards as proved, that invisible intelligences are 
all round us and eager to enter into communication 
with us, if we but give them the opportunity neces- 
sary for and adapted to their conditions. It is the 
object of this book to suggest the general rules and 
precautions to be observed in seeking such communica- 
tion." 3. An "authoritative statement by a plain 
citizen," which "sets forth the impressions produced 
on the minds of such plain men as are willing to 
follow truth, even if she lead them into strange lands, 
but who are none the less careful to first of all make 
sure that she is really what she professes to be." 
4. A book in which the problems discussed "deal rather 
with the nature of life after death, than the fact of a 
survival, which is regarded as proved. 



8 A BRITISH INVASION. 

traordinaiy series of spirit messages received through 
the editor's two children, girls of eleven and fourteen.'' 
6. A discussion of " certain spirit communications pur- 
porting to come from Frederic W. H. Myers." Most 
of the authors are again British. 

The special appeal which the most recent works 
of Conan Doyle and Oliver Lodge have for those who 
lost sons and husbands in the war resides in the cir- 
cumstance that both Doyle and Lodge had sons who 
were killed in battle, and with whom they are now 
able to communicate, if their presentations are true, 
through Spiritistic mediums. Their books have 
found a very large sale, and the public libraries 
throughout our country continually report these vol- 
umes as the most eagerly read, not even excluding 
the most popular modern fiction in the comparison. 
An Illinois pastor tells us that, in the public library 
of his town, Spiritistic literature comprises one-half 
of all religious works called for. 

The editors of our popular magazines have a keen 
scent for topics that are of current interest. They 
have recently responded to the new demand for reading- 
matter on psychic subjects. Hearst's ran an article 
on Conan Doyle which it announced in half-page ad- 
vertisements in the daily papers. The Ladies' Home 
Journal has had a Spiritistic story, and the Metro- 
politan and Cosmopolitan entire series of articles. In 
the Cosmopolitan of December, 1918, Ella Wheeler 
Wilcox writes on "A Voice from the Beyond," and 
tells about the difficulties she had in getting into 
communication with her departed husband by means 
of a ouija-board. Harper's Monthly Magazine of 
September, 1918, brought an article entitled "The Soul 
of Fighting France," with the subtitle "Some Spiritual 
Experiences and War-time Superstitions," which fur- 



A BRITISH INVASION. 9 

nishes information regarding the spread of Spiritistic 
practises in France. 

The following are some additional articles that 
appeared in recent months: December, 1918: "Case 
of Illness Cured by a Ghost," in Current Opinion. 
January, 1919: "Strange Experiences with Mrs. Ver- 
non," in the Unpopular Review. March, 1919: "Im- 
prisoned in the Five Senses," by A. P. Sinnett, in the 
Nineteenth Century and After. April, 1919 : ' ' Mes- 
merism and What Has Come of It," by W. S. Lilly, 
in the Nineteenth Century and After. April, 1919 : 
"Deeper Issues of Psychical Research," by W. Bar- 
rett, in the Unpopular Review. May, 1919: "Spirit- 
ualism and Christianity," by C. E. Hudson, in the 
Nineteenth Century and After. May, 1919: "Is Telep- 
athy the Master Key?" by E. Hinkley, in the Nine- 
teenth Century and After. May, 1919: "New Form 
of Matter," by J. D. Beresford, in Harper's Maga- 
zine. May 17, 1919: "Immortality and Modern Sci- 
ence," by F. Ballard, in Living Age. June, 1919: 
"Spiritualism and Religion," by M. E. Monteith, in 
the Nineteenth Century and After. June, 1919 : ' ' Signs 
and Portents," by M. Cameron, in Harper's Magazine. 
July, 1919: "Un Grand Peut-etre," by Senex, in the 
Fortnightly Review. August, 1919: "What is the Best 
Psychical Literature?" by Hereward Carrington, in 
The Bookman. August, 1919: "Adventures in Psy- 
chical Research," by L. P. Jacks, in the Atlantic 
Monthly. This list includes none of the recent fiction 
of a decidedly Spiritistic flavor that has appeared in 
recent magazines. 

Even the daily press is taking editorial notice of 
the new interest in matters psychical, and the number 
of articles discussing Raymond alone must have 
reached tens of millions of Americans. It is safe to 



10 A BRITISH INVASION. 

say that there is not a Sunday paper in the United 
States which has not reprinted some of the experiments 
of Conan Doyle, Oliver Lodge and Ella Wheeler 
Wilcox. 

Aside from this special literature occasioned by 
the war, the regular propaganda of Spiritism goes 
steadily on, and now mounts into millions of printed 
pages every month. There are now no less than two 
hundred journals devoted to this propaganda. Two 
papers, one published in Boston and one in St. Louis, 
are purported to be edited by the spirits themselves. 
They are read by thousands of curious dabblers in the 
occult, and, of course, are fairly devoured by those 
who believe that in Spiritism the world has been given 
"A New Eevelation." 

As regards the relation of Spiritism to Christianity, 
there is wide divergence in the doctrines conveyed 
through the mediums, and also in the views held by 
the spokesmen of the cult. Doyle proclaims it "A New 
Revelation." To him it is an advancement on, and a 
substitute for, the revelation contained in Scripture. 
But Sir William F. Barrett, a more eminent scientist 
and a no less devoted student of psychic phenomena, 
writes in answer to Sir Arthur: "I do not think 
that Spiritualism is or ever can be a religion; in fact, 
it may be inimical to true religion" (Light, Nov. 11, 
1916). Similar contradictory views — asserted most fre- 
quently in a decidedly dogmatic manner by men who 
deny to the church all right to like assurance in her 
own teaching — are found amongst American Spiritists 
also. Spiritism is advocated by some as an aid to 
true Christianity, a return to the spiritual Christianity 
of apostolic times. It is proposed by others as a 
religious system that will replace all existing religions 
after the war. And another group of Spiritists find 



A BRITISH INVASION. 11 

in it the complete conqueror of Christianity. They 
denounce Christianity as "an effete religious system 
that has juggled too long with the souls of men." 
Yet, alongside such utterances one finds others that 
declare that only in Christianity has mankind any 
message of hope — in Christianity, that is, purified by 
Spiritism. 

Whatever the contradictory views of its spokesmen, 
the subject is one of interest to the Christian. Here 
is a system which claims that the immortality of the 
soul receives scientific proof from its phenomena. It 
is, moreover, persistently advertised by its leaders 
as a "New Revelation." In view of the great propa- 
ganda, now at its height, which set in with the begin- 
ning of the World War, it is proper that we investigate 
the nature of the evidence which it urges on the world 
and the doctrines which it holds. 

Before we begin our analysis, however, a word as 
to the term "Spiritism." The Lutheran Quarterly 
said in 1898: "Spiritualism is incorrectly named. It 
is not a spiritual science. It does not deal in spiritual 
matters. It is most material — reducing all that belongs 
to the spiritual world to a material basis. Its demand 
for given conditions — always material — is absurd on 
the face of it. The product of the seance is always 
material — sounds, knocks, taps, music, messages, materi- 
alizations so called, these things are all of the solid 
earth, and render the name Spiritualism a misnomer." 
Spiritists have pretty well succeeded in substituting 
the term ' ' Spiritualism " for " Spiritism. ' ' The purpose 
is obvious. Spiritualism is a noble word. It is origi- 
nally the doctrine that the spirit of man is not derived 
from matter, but that God is the originator of human 
Life. Besides, the adjective "spiritual" has the conno- 



12 A BRITISH INVASION. 

tation of "devout," "godly," "reverent," "heavenly- 
minded." We prefer to use the terms "Spiritists" 
and "Spiritism," which have maintained themselves 
in Germany and France, since we are dealing with a 
system of religious belief in which the spirits are the 
presumed sources of revelation. 



CHAPTER TWO. 

The Origin of Modern Spiritism. 

TWO little girls — Margaretta and Kate Fox — were 
going to sleep in the attic room of their father's 
ramshackle old house at Hydesville, N. Y., one night in 
1848, when a sound of bumping and rapping was heard 
in various parts of the room. But the odd noises could 
not be explained. The same noises were heard again, 
also by other members of the Fox family. Principally, 
they were heard at night, but when no heed was paid 
to them they became more bold and came in the day- 
time. It was a favorite trick of the spirits to rap on 
the chair at which Mr. Fox knelt in prayer, and later 
to rock it violently, only to cease when he had finished 
his prayer. 

Again and again — sometimes at night, sometimes by 
day — the raps and the sound of a heavy falling body 
were repeated. Articles of furniture around the house 
began to move without visible human agency. As a 
man of the family sat down to dinner one day his chair 
was whisked from under him. The tall comb worn 
by Mrs. Fox was at another time tossed mysteriously 
out of her hair and across the room. These strange 
phenomena only occurred when one or both of the 
little girls happened to be present. The " spirits" 
would rap for none others of the family. 

As yet, however, no meaning attached to these 
rappings; they were simply uncanny noises. Modern 

13 



14 THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 

American Spiritism dates its existence from the night 
March 31, 1848, when, according to the recital of 
Mrs. Fox, the mother, her youngest child, Katie, said, 
"Mr. Splitfoot, do as I do," clapping her hands. The 
sound instantly followed. Then Margaretta, the next 
oldest, said, "Now do just as I do; count one, two, 
three, four," striking one hand against the other at 
the same time, and the raps came as before. This 
aroused Leah, the eldest, and she then conversed with 
the spirit. Soon they arranged a code of signals 
whereby they asked questions and received in reply a 
series of answers given by means of ghostly taps. Thus 
they conversed with the "unseen presence." Leah was 
prompted to get a large alphabet, and, by pointing to 
letters and having them identified by raps on the table, 
had spelled out to her this message: "Dear friends, 
you must proclaim these truths to the world. This 
is the dawning of a new era, and you must not try 
to conceal it any longer. When you do your duty God 
will protect you, and good spirits will watch over you. ' ' 

Throughout the neighborhood spread the news of 
the "haunted house." Still further traveled the fame 
of the two children whose occult powers enabled them 
to hold communication with spirits. The family moved 
to Rochester. There the three girls gave "seances" 
that were the wonder of the country. The theory that 
spirits of the dead could converse by raps, etc., with 
certain living persons known as "mediums," was not 
new. But it remained for the Fox sisters to revive 
that belief, and to start in America a wave of Spiritistic 
belief that quickly spread over the whole world, and 
found thousands of converts. 

After Rochester came Albany and Troy, and while 
in Troy, it is written, Margaretta was threatened with 



THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 15 

bodily harm. But even this, like many other troubles, 
was overcome by "some power not human." 

Next came New York City. Here, it seems, there 
were great demonstrations, the manifestations having 
been witnessed for nearly three years. Noted men, 
among them William Cullen Bryant, and other literary 
celebrities, attended seances and were puzzled. Finally 
they were given "messages" that made them believers. 
Physicians sought to explain the phenomena by scien- 
tific theories, but even they, according to quotations 
from New York papers, failed. Lawyers, judges, and 
the most highly educated of other classes, called, all 
going away in amazement. Among their visitors were 
Harriet Beecher Stowe and James Fenimore Cooper. 

Soon after the sisters visited Europe. The cleverest 
men and women of the day flocked to their seances. 
Thackeray, Browning, the Czar of Russia — throngs of 
geniuses, celebrities, kings and queens — took eager in- 
terest in the mystery. Scientists set clever traps to 
expose the girls' possible trickery. But from each test 
the sisters emerged triumphant. At last even those 
who refused to believe in Spiritism confessed that they 
could not explain how the thing was done, nor discover 
the faintest trace of fraud. 

Countless people, on the other hand, were certain 
that these uneducated girls had in some supernatural 
way the means of forming the connecting link between 
this world and the unknown. Other mediums followed 
in their footsteps. Spiritism became a fad — almost a 
religion. In America and Europe alike it was practised. 
When James Fenimore Cooper lay dying he is reported 
to have announced: "The Fox sisters foretold this 
very hour." Czar Nicholas I. is said to have set the 
date of his coronation by their advice. 



16 THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 

The Foxes were the talk of two continents. Leah 
married a wealthy Wall Street man; Kate married a 
London lawyer; Margaretta became the wife of Kane, 
the great arctic explorer. For a time all of them pros- 
pered. Then they fell on evil days and hard luck. 
And in 1888 Margaretta made public confession that 
their whole Spiritualistic mystery was a gigantic fake! 
She said she and Kate, as children, used to throw 
apples on the floor at night (causing a sound as of 
bodies falling), and then hide the apples in their bed 
when the family came to investigate. They also found 
they could snap the joints of their toes, thus produc- 
ing a sound as of "raps." All this they did, at first, 
as a joke. The "spirit theory" enabled them to play 
tricks on grown people without being punished — like 
slyly kicking away a chair as some one was about to 
sit on it, or upsetting a laden table. Leah had been 
the only one to suspect them, and they had let her 
into the secret. It was Leah and Margaretta who sug- 
gested turning the childish joke into a money-making 
scheme. Kate indorsed Margaretta 's confession. Leah, 
to the last, declared there had been no fake about the 
affair. 

At the Academy of Music in New York, October, 
1888, Margaretta made public confession of the fraud, 
showing also the way she had produced the mystic 
rappings by snapping her toe joints, and revealing 
other secrets of the fake. She even produced the 
famous rappings so that they could be heard plainly 
by the large audience throughout the hall in which she 
spoke, and said that the noise was made by the move- 
ment of her big toe joint. This exposure bears on its 
face the marks of truth. It is a document evidently 
spoken out of a soul that had tired of deceit, and was 
nauseated with deception. 



THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 17 

We can not do better than to give a little of the 
exact language of this curious confession. "I think/ ' 
she says, "that it is about time that the truth of this 
miserable subject [Spiritism] should be brought out. 
It is now widespread all over the world, and unless it 
is put down soon it will do great evil. I was the first 
in the field, and I have the right to expose it." 

We might quote at great length from this confession 
of one of the founders of modern Spiritism. The sub- 
stance of it is that Margaretta and Kate Fox, in a 
childish spirit of mischief, began the noises which 
terrified their mother. She called in the neighbors, 
and they were all puzzled and frightened together. 
The children, only nine and twelve years old, were 
themselves frightened at the excitement they had 
created, and set about finding some way to keep up the 
mystery. 

"No one suspected us of any trick, because we were 
such young children. We were led on by my mother 
unintentionally. We often heard her say: 'Is this a 
disembodied spirit that has taken possession of my dear 
children?' " Listen further to the pathos and evident 
truthfulness of the story. "I am the widow of Dr. 
Kane, the arctic explorer, and I say to you now, as I 
hold his memory dear, and would call him to me were 
it possible, I know that there is no such thing as the 
departed returning to this life. When Dr. Kane met 
me I told him that I hated this thing, that I had been 
pushed into it. I explained to him that it was a trick, 
that I had been forced into it, and did not want to 
go on with it. I think now that if my brain had not 
been very sound I should have been a maniac. Spirit- 
ualists say that I am mad now; that if I attempt to 
expose these tricks, I am mad. I have had a life of 
sorrow, I have been poor and ill, but I consider it my 



18 THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 

duty, a sacred thing, a holy mission, to expose it. I 
want to see the day that it is entirely done away with." 
(Quoted in Lutheran Quarterly, 1898, p. 3.) 

Margaretta's confession is supported by a woman 
relative, Mrs. Norman Culver, who made the following 
deposition : 

"I am, by marriage, a connection of the Fox girls; 
their brother married my husband's sister. The girls 
have been a great deal at my house, and, for about 
two years, I was a very sincere believer in the rappings ; 
but some things which I saw, when I was visiting the 
girls at Rochester, made me suspect that they were 
deceiving. 

"I resolved to satisfy myself, in some way; and, 
some time afterwards, I made a proposition to Cath- 
arine, to assist her in producing manifestations. I had 
a cousin visiting me from Michigan, who was going 
to consult the spirits, and I told Catharine that if they 
intended to go to Detroit, it would be a great thing 
for them to convince him; I also told her that if I 
could do anything to help her, I would do it cheerfully 
— that I would probably be able to answer all the 
questions he would ask, and I would do it if she would 
show me how to make the raps. She said that, as 
Margaretta was absent, she wanted somebody to help 
her, and that, if I would become a medium, she would 
explain it all to me. She said that when my cousin 
consulted the spirits, I must sit next to her, and touch 
her arm when the right letter was called. I did so, 
and was able to answer nearly all the questions cor- 
rectly. 

"After I had helped her in this way a few times, 
she revealed to me the secret. The raps are produced 
with the toes. All the toes are used. After nearly 



THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 19 

a week's practice, with Catharine showing me how, 
I could produce them perfectly myself. At first it 
was very hard work to do it. Catharine told me to 
warm my feet, or put them in warm water, and it 
would be easier work to rap; she said that she some- 
times had to warm her feet three or four times in the 
course of an evening. I found that heating my feet 
did enable me to rap a great deal easier. I have 
sometimes produced a hundred and fifty raps in suc- 
cession. I can rap with all the toes on both feet — 
it is most difficult to rap with the great toe. 

"Catharine told me how to manage to answer the 
questions. She said it was generally easy enough to 
answer right if the one who asked the questions called 
the alphabet. She said the reason why they asked 
people to write down several names on paper, and then 
point to them till the spirit rapped at the right one, 
was to give them a chance to watch the countenance 
and motions of the person; and that, in that way, 
they could nearly always guess right. She also ex- 
plained how they held down and moved tables. [Mrs. 
Culver gave us some illustrations of the tricks.] She 
told me that all I should have to do to make the raps 
heard on the table would be to put my foot on the 
bottom of the table when I rapped, and then, when 
I wished to make the raps sound distinct on the wall, 
I must make them louder, and direct my own eyes 
earnestly to the spot where I wished them to be heard. 
She said if I could put my foot against the bottom of 
the door, the raps would be heard on the top of the 
door. 

"Catharine told me that when the committee held 
their ankles, in Eochester, the Dutch servant-girl 
rapped with her knuckles, under the floor, from the 



20 THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 

cellar. The girl was instructed to rap whenever she 
heard their voices calling the spirits. Catharine also 
showed me how they made the sounds of sawing and 
planing boards. [The whole trick was explained to us.l 
When I was at Rochester last January, Margaretta told 
me that when people insisted on seeing her feet and 
toes, she could produce a few raps with her knee and 
ankle. 

"Elizabeth Fish [Mrs. Fish's daughter], who now 
lives with her father, was the first one who produced 
these raps. She accidentally discovered the way to 
make them by playing with her toes against the foot- 
board while in bed. Catharine told me that the reason 
why Elizabeth went away West to live with her father 
was because she was too conscientious to become a 
medium. 

"The whole secret was revealed to me, with the 
understanding that I should practise as a medium 
when the girls were away. Catharine said that, when- 
ever I practised, I had better have my little girl at 
the table with me, and make folks believe that she 
was the medium, for she said that they would not 
suspect so young a child of any tricks. After I had 
obtained the whole secret, I plainly told Catharine 
that my only object was to find out how the tricks 
were done, and that I should never go any further in 
the imposition. She was very much frightened, and 
said she believed that I meant to tell of it and expose 
them; and if I did, she would swear it was a lie. 
She was so nervous and excited that I had to sleep 
with her that night. 

"When she was instructing me how to be a medium, 
she told me how frightened they used to get in New 
York for fear somebody would detect them, and gave 



THE ORIGIN OF MODERN SPIRITISM. 21 

me the whole history of all the tricks they played on 
the people there. She said that once Margaretta spoke 
aloud, and the whole party believed it was a spirit. 

"Mrs. Norman Culver/ ' 

"We hereby certify that Mrs. Culver is one of the 
most reputable and intelligent ladies in the town of 
Arcadia. We were present when she made the dis- 
closures contained in the above paper; we had heard 
the same from her before, and we cheerfully bear 
testimony that there can not be the slightest doubt of 
the truth of the whole statement. 

"C. G. Pomery, M. D. 
"Kev. D. S. Chase,"' 

Spiritualists all over the world denounced this con- 
fession. Many of them continued to believe the self- 
confessed impostor a genuine medium. But the strang- 
est part of all is that Margaretta later retracted her 
confession, and was received once more into the Spirit- 
ualistic fold. She died in Brooklyn in 1893. 



CHAPTER THREE. 

Mediumship and Its Phenomena. 

WEBSTER defines "Spiritualism 5 
the frequent communication of intelligence from 
the world of spirits, by means of physical phenomena, 
commonly manifested through a person of special sus- 
ceptibility, called a medium." Webster only mentions 
"physical phenomena," subsuming under this term the 
"mental manifestations [automatic writing, clairvoy- 
ance, etc.]." 

A medium is a person susceptible, according to the 
theory, to "spirit" influences. A modern Spiritist 
writes: "A medium may be described as a 'go between' 
the two worlds, a sort of psychic bridge; and, just 
as certain kinds of material are required for ordinary 
bridges, so they are necessary for this kind. This 
material is the mysterious psychic force. It is needed 
for all forms of mediumship." (Horace Leaf, What Is 
This Spiritualism? p. 59.) 

The first Spiritistic mediums exhibiting this psychic 
force in the present world age, according to the his- 
torians of the cult, were the Fox sisters. It was in the 
early fifties, however, that the greatest of all mediums 
(according to Conan Doyle) developed. His name 
was D. D. Home, a Scottish-American whose father was 
said to be a son of the tenth Earl of Home, and whose 
mother was credited as being gifted with "second 
sight." Home was given special credence because 

22 



MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 23 

he never sought to make money out of his powers. 
Home traveled much abroad, appearing before scien- 
tists and crowned heads, and mystifying them by his 
peculiar powers. Among those before whom he gave 
demonstrations was the Czar of Russia, Alexander II., 
but, says a recent Arthur Brisbane editorial, "he ap- 
parently did not tell him that a few years later he 
would be blown to pieces by a bomb, nor that, within 
a half-century, his successor, and all that czardom 
represented, would be wiped from the face of the 
earth." 

Following Home there have been many famous 
mediums. Mrs. Piper, of Boston, the discovery of 
Prof. William James, of Harvard, was for years under 
the observation of the Society of Psychical Research, 
with remarkable results. Mrs. Piper is alleged to have 
been under three distinct "controls" during her life. 
For seven years her communications came from Dr. 
Phinuit, a French physician, of whose career in life 
no evidence has ever been found. For four years 
following she expressed the spirit of "George Pelham," 
which was the pen-name of a young American author, 
and, following him, she became the mouthpiece of the 
"controls" of Stainton-Moses, who had died but a short 
time before, and who during his life had been a 
medium of wide reputation. Much of the result of 
the demonstrations of Mrs. Piper has been kept 
secret because of its private character. She has never 
sought notice, nor been accessible to the public in 
general, and there have been no charges of fraud 
placed against her. 

Another famous medium still alive is Eusapia Pal- 
ladino, of Italy, who visited this country some few 
years ago, and was closely investigated by both believ- 
ers and doubters. Unfortunately for Palladino's repu- 



24 MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 

tation, she was detected in fraudulent practises, 
although many of her demonstrations were credited by 
investigators as being done without the use of im- 
proper methods. 

The number of mediums now operating in our 
American cities is legion. Their methods of com- 
munication with the dead are generally restricted to 
simple trance-speaking, automatic writing, and clair- 
voyance, while such phenomena as direct writing, 
spiritual photography, and materialization are on the 
repertoire of a comparatively small (and correspond- 
ingly high-priced) number. Before we take up for 
discussion the various phenomena of mediumship, a 
brief summary of views which Spiritists hold regarding 
life after death will be in place. 

"Spiritualists declare that life in this sense is taken 
up in the new world at the point it was broken off 
here. That is to say, a person is no better nor worse 
immediately after dying than he was immediately 
before." (Horace Leaf, What Is This Spiritualism? 
p. 48.) "Spiritualism teaches that we enter the next 
world precisely as we leave this, and begin the round 
of development where we left off here. In the higher 
state of being which we enter at the dissolution of 
the physical frame, we shall retain, to a great extent, 
recollections of our past life, and shall find that there 
is an intimate relation between the past, the present 
and the future." (J. A. Hill, Spiritualism, p. 181.) 
We read also that, after death, if the spiritual life is 
kind and gentle and good, the grosser elements of the 
spiritual body are eliminated, leaving the body more 
refined and spiritual; so that it can rise into a higher 
zone, which, in its turn, is composed of the more refined 
and spiritualized elements eliminated from this higher 
zone, and the third zone is composed of the still more 



MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 25 

refined and spiritualized elements from the second, 
and so on. (All this is asserted on the authority of 
communications made by the spirits through mediums.) 
In this world the body may be so crippled by dis- 
ease or accident as to be entirely useless, and yet the 
mentality will find means for the exercise of its powers, 
"ofttimes with astonishing vigor." The following 
communication from the spirit of Bishop Wilberforce 
was published in the proceedings of the Society for 
Psychical Research of April, 1895: "Since I left the 
earth I have been occupied in learning my work and 
in preparing myself for the life of progress to which 
my being is now devoted. Already I have passed 
through the first sphere, where are gathered those who 
are bound to earth by the affections, or are unable to 
rise as yet. There I saw some whom I had known 
in the body, and learned from them and from others 
much that I needed to know. My work will be of 
a similar sort till I reach my appointed sphere. I 
have come to give you this brief word of comfort and 
consolation. Be of good cheer." The spirits in the 
"Summerland," we are told on the authority of the 
spirits themselves, "live in houses with gardens, where 
the flowers turn toward you as you enter, or, in case 
they don't like you, turn away." The houses are 
mostly of red brick, and the bricks are made by ex- 
tracting substances from the air with a machine like 
a dynamo. Sir Oliver Lodge, in his new book Ray- 
mond, gravely informs us that the flight of the soul 
is not left to the forces of gravitation. The fond 
fancies of childhood are all ruthlessly dispelled by 
the discoveries of science. We do not mount to heaven 
as glorious rays of light, nor as spirit forms clothed in 
gleaming robes of light, but — how shall I tell it? — we 
go as " smells ' ' ! The human body contains ' ' etheric 



26 MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 

substance, ' ' which is dissipated at death, but is gathered 
together by a "spirit doctor who comes round." This 
etheric substance of the human body is transmitted 
to the next world by the gases and smells of putre- 
faction. The spheres where the disincarnate spirits 
dwell are constructed in a similar way. Here in the 
1 ' Summerland " there is every natural happiness: 
charming clothes, glorious gardens, homelike houses, etc. 
There is opportunity for moral advancement in this 
after-life. "If a man would be good, he must do good; 
if he desires to increase his knowledge, he must continue 
to strive after it; if he would progress to more spiritual 
states, he must live more spiritually." "People who 
have been very wicked here suffer in the next world 
in a remedial, and not in a vindictive, sense." "There 
are states or planes to which wrong-doers pass, coin- 
ciding with their demerits, and comparable to the con- 
ception of purgatory. In them the process is one of 
purifying, and until that has been fully accomplished, 
they can not hope to pass to higher and happier condi- 
tions. ' ' 

-According to the author of a work entitled Outlines 
of Spiritualism for the Young (Horace Leaf), man is 
made up of a soul, a spiritual body and physical body. 
"There is something more than the nerves which we 
can not see, because it is as fine in its nature as the 
perfume of flowers. This fine something is called 
'nerve-aura.' All above what is required for daily use 
is thrown off like perfume from flowers. Our spiritual 
bodies are formed of this fine nerve-aura, which is 
spiritualized matter. When our spiritual friends and 
guardians visit us, they look at our spiritual bodies, 
and, by their purity or otherwise, they can see at a 
glance what kind of lives we live. People who indulge 
in evil habits, such as opium or tobacco smoking, and 



MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 27 

laudanum and intoxicating drink, carry the appetite 
with them at death; it is because some of the narcotic 
and alcohol from these things help to compose the 
spiritual body, that they crave or hunger for their 
kind. So that the spirit people seek those in the body 
who still indulge in these bad habits, and get their 
craving satisfied through other people" (Outlines, 
pp. 30-32). 

Phenomena. The phenomena through which the 
spirits of the dead are believed to communicate with 
the living are grouped under two heads, physical and 
mental. 

A. The physical phenomena are differentiated as 
follows : 

1. The simply physical. The raising of bodies into 
the air (levitation) . The passing of bodies through 
walls and curtains (penetration, dematerialization) . 

2. Direct writing. A pencil untouched by human 
hands will rise and commence the writing of a message. 
Slate-pencils under a slate are heard writiug spiritual 
messages. 

3. Musical. Trumpets are blown, guitars and violins 
played without human agency. 

4. Materializations. Spirits assume human forms 
which may be touched, and which address those present. 

5. Spirit photography. Photographs are shown 
which reveal more or less distinct images of the de- 
parted. 

B. Mental Phenomena. 

1. Automatic writing. The medium in a trance 
state writes messages from the dead, sometimes in 
languages unknown to her. A piece of cardboard or 
a thin board, triangular in shape, with a pencil stuck 
on a corner, glides over the paper when touched by 
the persons under spirit control, and either writes out 



28 MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 

messages in longhand, or spells them out from an 
alphabet over which the board passes (planchette, 
ouija-board). 

2. Clairvoyance. The medium sees and describes 
the spirits of the dead appearing to her, and conveys 
communications from them. This is the most common 
phenomenon, and is part of nearly every (professional) 
mediumistic seance, and also of the religious service of 
the Spiritists. 

3. Trance speaking. The medium discourses on 
subjects far beyond her knowledge, and in language 
quite foreign to her ordinary modes of thought. 

4. Impersonation. The medium loses her identity 
and speaks in the character of another person, living or 
dead, imitating every inflection of the voice with as- 
tonishing exactness. 

5. Healing. The medium heals bodily disease by 
direct mesmeric influence or by discovering medical 
treatment for a given case. 

The commonest phenomenon — clairvoyant com- 
munion with the spirits — is illustrated by J. A. Hill, 
an English Spiritist of prominence, who, in his Spirit- 
ualism (1919), records the following scene from a 
Spiritist church service. A clairvoyant medium ad- 
dresses the audience: 

"There is a gentleman here, about seventy-three 
or seventy-four years old. A well-built gentleman, 
somewhat red in complexion. I should think he would 
not have ailed much as a general rule, yet I think he 
would get a little bit feeble before passing away. He 
wears a kind of Scotch tweed suit. Full in body, with 
moustache and beard round here [pointing], and bushy 
eyebrows. He is surprised to come back here. He 
would have been surprised if asked to come to a Spirit- 
ualist church in earth life. I get Thomas Rhodes, Daisy 



MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENxV. 29 

Hill Lane. He is showing me now a steel that butchers 
use; probably a butcher in earth life. . . . 

"He is coming with another gentleman, a friend of 
his, whom I would take to be sixty-three before passing. 
Fairly well built, very religious in earth life. I see 
a religious aura obtruding from his body, showing that 
in life he was a very religious man. He is dressed 
in a beautiful frock-coat suit, with black gloves, and 
tall, shiny hat. This gentleman gives me his name 
as Mitchell Briggs. He is holding a hymn-book with 
'Daisy Hill Primitives' on the back. I think this 
gentleman will have been a Rechabite; shows regalia 
on dress. . . . 

"A young soldier builds up here in your surround- 
ings [pointing]. I don't like describing these soldiers. 
He looks to be twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but it 
is hard to judge. Not passed away very long. He 
comes with another gentleman. His name is John 
Preston. He says: 'I lost my life in the present war, 
and I would do it over again if I had the chance.' 

"A lady brings a girl to our friend here, a girl 
about nine or ten years old. How bright and beautiful 
this girl appears! This lady is bringing her over, 
helping her forward. The child has thrown off all 
earth conditions, and comes in a spirit robe. Her hair 
is flowing down her back. It is Mrs. Neal's little 
girl, Gladys Mary. [Addresses some one in audience.] 
Do you come from Leeds? 

"Answer — Yes. 

"Medium — I get that this girl passed away at Leeds, 
and if you will inquire at Leeds you will find out about 
the girl. Gladys Mary Neal. You have to ask Alice 
Hesp. She will tell you." 

One of the most common manifestations, not con- 
nected with professional mediums, is automatic writing 



30 MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 

or spelling with the ouija-board, or planchette. It 
now has a tremendous vogue. I have seen a summer 
hotel near Mobile, Ala., fitted out with this contrivance 
for the use of the guests. There are few communities 
where it has not at some time been tried. It is often 
merely a means of amusement, but there are a great 
many who have a strong belief that there is something 
supernatural in it. Sometimes the phenomena are really 
remarkable. "On one occasion," says the Lutheran 
Quarterly, 1894, page 18, "the name of a person 
wholly unknown to every one in the room except one, 
and his hands were not in contact with the table, was 
correctly spelled out. On another, the name of a town, 
of which none present had ever heard, was spelled, 
together with the State in which it was located." Most 
persons who do not believe that there is any spirit 
influence suppose that it is due to ' ' electricity. ' ' Count 
Gaspari, after repeated experiments in his own family, 
was "thoroughly convinced that the spirits had nothing 
to do with it," but found the presence of "a force 
which he could not explain." 

'However, it is the physical phenomena of the Spirit- 
istic seance that loom largest in the psychic repertoire. 
Truly astonishing things happen. Tables and other 
articles of furniture rise and float in the air ; heavy 
bodies lose part of their weight and may be lifted with 
ease (levitation) ; objects disappear in air {demateriaU 
ization) and reappear; albums, books, sounding-trum- 
pets, tinkling guitars float through the air; invisible 
hands touch heads and faces; entire bouquets of cut 
flowers lie on the table when the light is turned on; 
a string on the table-top ties itself into a knot before 
one's eyes; slates are tied together, sealed, and when 
opened contain a long spirit message written with 
crayon. 



MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA. 31 

There are materializations of spirits who even leave 
footprints on flour scattered on the floor, and which, 
in some rare instances, have become visible to the eye 
and could be touched with the hands. Lombroso affirms 
that his mother materialized at least twenty times to 
him during his seances with Eusapia Palladino, and she 
would say : " l My son, my treasure ! ' Kissing my head 
and lips with her lips." (After Death — What? by 
Cesare Lombroso, pp. 68, 69.) 

Concerning the materialization of spirits, Mr. Hor 
ace Leaf, a British leader of the cult, writes: "For 
a long time materialization was pronounced by sincere 
investigators as nothing but trickery. The very tests 
they applied seemed conclusively to prove this. One 
method was to mark surreptitiously some part of the 
supposed spirit body with some colored material, and 
after the seance to examine the medium. If the mark 
was found on him, he was naturally considered a fraud. 
Thus many materializing mediums were discredited. 
The solution to the mystery was found when it was 
discovered that the substance composing the material- 
ized form was extracted from corresponding parts of 
the medium's body. On the form dematerializing, these 
elements returned to the psychic's body, carrying with 
them the incriminating marks." (What Is This Spirit- 
ualism? p. 135f.) This explanation will not appear 
convincing to most of us. Still, the subject of material- 
ization remains one of the most baffling to the un- 
prejudiced investigator — and by "unprejudiced" we 
mean one who is not ready offhand to say that there 
can be no supernatural element in Spiritism. This is 
a report of the celebrated seance in which Mr. Crookes, 
one of the most famous British scientists, saw both the 
spirit "Katie" and the medium: 



32 MEDIUMSHIP AND ITS PHENOMENA 

"During one of these seances Mr. Crookes had the 
satisfaction of seeing 'Katie' and her medium together. 
Miss Cook [the medium] was crouching on the ground 
unconscious, whilst 'Katie' stood close behind her. 
Never before this seance had 'Katie' appeared to 
greater perfection. For nearly two hours she walked 
about the room, conversing familiarly with those pres- 
ent. On several occasions she took Mr. Crookes' arm 
when walking, conveying to him the impression that it 
was a living woman by his side 'instead of a visitor 
from the other world.' To assure himself of her sub- 
stantial nature, he asked her permission to clasp her 
in his arms, thus to verify interesting observations that 
had been made by ' another experimenter. Permission 
was graciously given, and he accordingly did so. Sub- 
sequently Mr. Crookes obtained a series of photographs 
of 'Katie'; each evening there were three or four ex- 
posures of plates in five cameras, giving at least fifteen 
separate pictures of each seance. Altogether he ob- 
tained forty-four negatives. One of the most interest- 
ing of the pictures is one in which he is standing by 
the side of 'Katie.' " (Hill, op. cit., p. 32f.) 

Such are, in outline, the phenomena, physical and 
mental, of mediumship. When it is considered that 
these phenomena have been made the object of inves- 
tigations by scientifically trained examiners, and their 
genuineness is asserted by psychologists, chemists, phy- 
sicists, mathematicians, astronomers, biologists, jurists, 
medical men, etc., etc., in many countries, one must 
say that it will not do to simply dispose of the matter 
by saying: "Bah, imagination!" — or "Humbug! 
Trickery!" 

But, after all, ARE they genumef 



CHAPTER FOUR. 

The Great Niblo and His Rivals. 

THERE is ample ground for the assertion that de- 
ception enters very largely into the phenomena of 
Spiritism. Many a "test" which at first appeared 
absolutely inexplicable, except on the assumption of 
supernatural powers, on closer inspection has proved 
a very simple, though ingenious, piece of sleight of 
hand. Every device of the experimental psychologist, 
and often a truly astonishing knowledge of human 
nature and very unusual powers of penetration, are 
employed by the mediums in extracting out of the 
flicker of an eyelid, or a slight contraction of the nos- 
trils, or a suppressed gasp or exclamation, those facts 
which are announced with such solemnity to the 
"sitter" as emanations of the spirit-world with which 
the medium is in contact. Even the greatest mediums 
have almost without exception been apprehended in 
most ignoble trickery. 

Nor is it so very remarkable that men of the world, 
professional and business men, who otherwise pride 
themselves on their immuneness against fraud and de- 
ception, should fall a prey to the professed adepts of 
occult art. 

When the ancient Romans had turned to agnosticism 
and atheism, they fell a prey to Egyptian and Chaldean 
necromancers, tricksters of the lowest class. 

33 



34 THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 

Superstition nourishes wherever, and in the same 
measure as, spiritual life decays. The stages are, and 
always have been, belief — unbelief — superstition. When 
a man loses faith in God, he turns to ' ' Mr. Rudinor, the 
eminent Rosicrucian Hindoo Mystic Medium and 
Adept"; to the " Great Madam Mizpah, the World's 
Greatest Clairvoyant, Psychic Palmist, and Dead 
Trance Medium"; to "Prof. W. L. Niblo, the Astral 
Dead Trance Clairvoyant"; to "Ismar, Psychic Healer 
and Seeress," and to "Madame Karma, Instructor in 
Karmasophy," all of whom advertised their powers in 
one issue of the Chicago Sunday Examiner. 

These advertisements are worth a little closer study. 

Professor Niblo has reduced his readings from five 
dollars to fifty cents. "Without asking questions, and 
before you speak one word, he tells your full name." 
He has brought about more marriages than any medium 
in America. "I point with pride to my record of 
successful work the past year: Reunited 198 couples. 
Brought about 287 marriages. Gained love of certain 
ones, 375. Located 5 buried treasures. Located 49 ab- 
sent persons. Overcame 846 rivals. And hundreds of 
other cases." 

Niblo is "the leader of his profession." But the 
"Great Madam Mizpah" has the advantage of him in 
at least one respect. True, her readings are likewise 
reduced from five dollars to fifty cents; she issues 
the same challenge: "Will tell your full name without 
asking a question." But Mizpah is, in addition, "born 
with a double vail," "is not a clairvoyant from choice, 
but because Fate has so decreed it. Her ancestors 
were powerful mediums, and have for ages handed 
down their wonderful power of gift from generation 
to generation." "This occult wonder is placed in a 
class by herself, towering head and shoulders over 



THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 35 

every rival, and is recognized by the profession as their 
brightest star." 

Yet she has a rival, and a dangerous one, in the 
august person of the " Eminent and Distinguished 
Eosicrucian Hindoo Mystic Medium and Adept from 
the Far East — Mr. Eusse Eudinor, " whose advertise- 
ment occupies three-quarters of a column in the same 
paper. " Never before since the birth of Psychicism 
has there appeared upon the professional firmament 
a star so radiant and sparkling with the finer forces 
of nature and occult power as this cultured and highly 
gifted adept. Years of study, travels in far Eastern 
lands and endless research, coupled with rare spiritual 
and psychic gifts, have crowned him the greatest living 
authority and exponent of his weird and mysterious 
profession." Mr. Eudinor has been " endorsed by Hoti 
Panyanobi (the Light of India) as the seventh link of 
the Sacred Mystic Circle." His famous five-dollar 
readings are reduced "this week only" to twenty-five 
cents. "Without your uttering one word, and without 
asking you one question, he tells your full name." 

Madame Karma offers a correspondence course in 
occult studies. She gives a free "life reading" — "to 
all who send One Quarter to cover charges." "Over 
9,273 mailed last month." "Mme. Karma wishes to 
state that she will be unable to receive personal callers 
hereafter, until the new year of 1918, up to which 
date her services will henceforth be devoted only to 
the welfare and advancement of her many students, 
and former patrons for whom she is doing private work, 
but by 'special request' she will renew her free mail 
offer for one week longer for the benefit of those who 
were unable to write before." 

One should think that the vulgarity and sensation- 
alism of the methods of advertising adopted by these 



36 THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 

mediums would be, in itself, reason enough for intelli- 
gent people to withhold their patronage, even if spirit- 
istically inclined. However, when one of these fakers 
receives some unpaid-for advertising through arraign- 
ment in a criminal court for fraudulent stock deals 
or some other bit of crooked business, it generally 
develops that a goodly number of society women and 
of cultured professional men are among their regular 
clientele, seeking their advice on the matter of invest- 
ments, and concerning personal or professional rela- 
tions. It is, moreover, an astonishing fact that, as in 
the case of fortune-tellers, their dupes will continue to 
patronize these charlatans even after their trickery 
has been exposed in a given instance. Seeking the 
advice of mediums becomes a habit of which people are 
as little able to break themselves as the dope-fiend and 
the alcoholic. 

The history of the exposes of fake mediums is almost 
as old as modern Spiritism. 

In 1847 the Katie King seance was exposed in the 
presence of Dr. Owen. This expose drove Dr. Owen 
insane. In 1876, Anna Steward was exposed in Terre 
Haute, Ind. Every Spiritistic journal prior to the 
exposure declared her to be one of the best mediums 
in this country. Hull, Jameson and Judge Edmonds 
affirm that nearly every medium of importance has 
been exposed. Mediums, as a rule, have two careers: 
one as a spirit medium, then, when they are exposed, 
they start out lecturing on the exposure of all mediums. 
The Spiritualistic Journal in 1877 exposed the photo- 
graphic spirit fraud of Mrs. Blanchard. Dr. Slade, the 
slate-writing medium, performed before the crowned 
heads of Europe. In 1876 he was exposed. Dr. Childs 
discovered that the Katie King spirit was Mrs. Holmes. 
The Bennetts were marvels, but were exposed and then 



THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 37 

went about exposing others. Mr. Holmes, the greatest 
medium in the history of Spiritism, said: "I doubt if 
there be five materializing mediums that have not been 
caught in perpetrating some fraud." (Coombs, Relig- 
ious Delusions, p. 130.) 

In 1876, before no less dignified and conservative 
a body than the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, the proposal was made that a special 
committee be appointed for the systematic examination 
of Spiritistic and kindred phenomena. In January, 
1882, the now celebrated Society for Psychical Research 
was formally organized. There were various subcom- 
mittees of inquiry into the physical phenomena of 
Spiritism — the knockings, table-turnings, production of 
"spirit" forms, and similar marvels of the Home-Slade- 
Moses type of "medium." From the outset, these 
subcommittees demonstrated the value of psychic re- 
search as a protection of the interests of society by 
exposing, one after another, the fraudulent character 
of the pretended wonder-workers. 

In this region of inquiry no one was more successful 
than a recruit from distant Australia, by name Richard 
Hodgson. Hodgson, unlike many others of his asso- 
ciates, had not engaged in psychic research from the 
hope that the truths of the Bible might thereby be 
demonstrated. His motive was that of the detective 
eager to unravel mysteries. From his boyhood he had 
had a singular fondness for solving tricks and puzzles 
of all sorts; and when, in 1878, he came to England 
to complete his education at Cambridge, he naturally 
gravitated into the company of Sidgwick, Myers and 
Gurney, the founders of Psychical Research, as men 
busied in an undertaking that appealed to his detective 
instinct. He was radically different from them in tem- 
perament and point of view — not at all mystical, full 



38 THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 

of animal spirits, fond of all manner of sports, and 
interested in occult subjects only so far as they fur- 
nished working material for his nimble and inquiring 
mind. The Cambridge trio, however, took kindly to 
him, invited him to join the Society for Psychical 
Research, and two years after its formation were instru- 
mental in sending him to India to investigate the 
methods of Madame Blavatsky, the high priestess of 
the Theosophic movement which was then winning 
adherents throughout the civilized world. 

From this inquiry he returned to England with 
an international reputation as a detective of the super- 
natural. With the aid of two disgruntled confederates 
of the Theosophist leader, he claimed to have demon- 
strated the falsity of the foundations on which her 
claims rested, and to have shown that downright swin- 
dling constituted a large part of her stock in trade. 
With redoubled ardor he now plunged into the task of 
exposing the Spiritistic mediums plying their vocation 
in England, and for this purpose enlisted the assistance 
of a professional conjurer, S. J. Davey, who was also 
a member of the Society for Psychical Research. 

Davey, after a little practice, succeeded in dupli- 
cating by mere sleight of hand many of the most im- 
pressive feats of the mediums; doing this, indeed, so 
well that many Spiritists alleged that he was in reality 
a medium himself! Hodgson, for his part, by clever 
analysis of the Davey mediumistic competitors, brought 
home to his colleagues in the Society for Psychical 
Research a lively sense of the folly of depending on 
the human eye as a detector of fraudulent Spiritistic 
phenomena. His crowning triumph came with his 
exposure of Eusapia Palladino, the Italian medium, 
who is still popular on the European continent. (The 
Ghost Hunters, by H. Addington Bruce.) 



THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 39 

A St. Louis Spiritistic medium, Horace Monroe 
Kanouse, who boasts that he has submitted to inves- 
tigations by scientific persons for fifteen years without 
detection, puzzling and confounding them, much as 
Palladino has done, some ten years ago turned upon 
himself and his confreres, and exposed many of the 
so-called mysteries they practise. The former medium 
demonstrated his seemingly weird powers in over two 
hundred halls and private residences in St. Louis, and 
the amazing character of his performances has been 
testified to by many leading citizens. Among the tricks 
he exposed are the raising of spirit hands at the cur- 
tains, production of strange winds, ghostly playing of 
violins, firing guns placed behind the medium, material- 
izing spirits of the dead, hurling sitting subjects about 
the room, moving furniture, the medium's escape from 
ropes, the talking-trumpet, table-tapping, and freeing 
the medium's hands and feet. He also tells of the 
secret "Blue Book" circulated among the Spiritists of 
the country.* 

Mr. Kanouse 's confessions, which are entitled "How 
I Fooled the Scientists," make very interesting and 
instructive reading. Here only one or two passages can 
be quoted: 

"Why do I expose the secrets that I have jealously 
guarded for twenty years? Why do I disclose the 
most profound deceptions of myself and of other 
mediums that I have known? It is because I have 
grown tired of deception. I am sick of the utter 
humbuggery of it all, of seeing some of the brightest 
minds of the race wandering into a dark wilderness 
after false gods, of watching the grief -stricken mother 



*A register containing information about persons in many cities. The 
information is gathered by the mediums or by their special agents, who 
visit towns as traveling-men and take note of deaths, marriages, accidents, 
etc. The book circulates among mediums, who "post" themselves on a town 
before conducting seances there. 



40 THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 

hungering for a word or a hand-clasp from her dead 
child, and being content with a mouthful of drivel 
from the lips of some ignorant medium. To quit that 
dark and illusory land where millions are deceived 
every night of the year was a relief to me. 

"I have been intimately acquainted with nearly all 
the leading mediums of this country, and have wit- 
nessed the spectacular performances of the European 
clairvoyants. But all alleged spirit manifestations are 
full of trivialities and utter nonsense. As far as I 
am concerned, I have used my 'mysterious powers' 
for the last time. I will administer ghostly comfort 
to the bereaved no more. Flickering lights, table- 
rapping tricks, thrumming of spookish fingers on man- 
dolin strings, and tipping and lifting chairs, will no 
longer be a part of my life." 

Nevertheless, it can not be said that Mr. Kanouse's 
book made a noticeable breach in the ranks of Spiritism. 
''The gullibility of some people when a fraud in the 
name of religion is exposed is something inexplicable, 
if- it be sincere, ' ' said the Lutheran World years ago. 
"This has been demonstrated a thousand times in the 
history of Spiritism. In Theosophy and other cults the 
same thing is true. Many years ago Madame Blavatsky 
was exposed in Madras. Her secretary turned state's 
evidence, and investigation showed that her residence 
was equipped with a large variety of machinery ade- 
quate to produce all manner of astonishing results. A 
clergyman visiting Madras in her absence, soon after 
the exposure, was admitted to the confidence of her 
Theosophical friends. He asked them the leading ques- 
tion: 'Why did Madame Blavatsky have all this ma- 
chinery in her house?' The reply which he received 
was as follows: 'This also greatly puzzles us, for we 



THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 41 

know that she could produce all these effects without 
machinery through the aid of supernatural powers!' " 
The power of the Spiritist medium is well illus- 
trated in the following newspaper story: Mrs. R. L. 
Green, a Chicago Spiritist, and Mr. Green, her husband, 
whose agreeable task it was to collect one dollar from 
each devotee who attended the seances held at the 
1 ' studio, ' ' were fined fifty dollars and costs in a munic- 
ipal court, Jan. 14, 1910. The session which involved 
them in trouble was held the previous night. Several 
plain-clothes officers were in attendance. At the trial 
one of the officers testified that "a form suddenly 
appeared and everybody present said, 'Hello, grandpa/ 
It seems that it was the reincarnation of an Indian 
chief. He wanted to shake hands with all the members 
of his tribe, so we all shook hands with him. Tie told 
me that there was a young Indian girl at the door who 
wanted to see me. Then he disappeared, but after a 
short time he came back. I thought it about time to 
grab 'grandpa,' so I grasped his wrist. He struggled 
to get away, and it became apparent that ' grandpa T 
was Mrs. Green. She offered me two hundred dollars 
if I would let her go, saying, 'If you don't, you will 
ruin my business, and I can't get all these people 
back here again.' " Mrs. Green's attorney demanded 
of the officer how he knew the form he had grasped 
was not actually the reincarnation of the chief, which 
called forth the court's decision that "only material 
things would be ruled on," and that the question 
need not be answered. A complicated set of parapher- 
nalia used in the impersonation of "spirits" was 
exhibited in court. But, in spite of such evidence of 
fraud, one of the guests arrested with the Greens tes- 
tified that she had been in communication with her 
departed husband in various ways, and that "grandpa" 



42 THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 

was an Indian chief materialized — the original chief of 
the Black Hawks, in fact ! 

Before we leave the subject, we shall bring to the 
attention of readers interested in things Spiritistic a 
book published twelve years ago, and now in its fifth 
edition. The title is Behind the Scenes with the Medi- 
ums, and the author, David P. Abbott. Mr. Abbott 
can imitate all the tricks of Spiritists, and here demon- 
strates how he does it. He has been about among the 
mediums, and explains all their devices. Sealed enve- 
lopes, slate messages, tappings and luminous clouds 
have no terrors or mysteries for him. The lady who 
shudders when the Great Madame Mizpah gives her 
name and address without asking a question, and the 
gentleman who reads with avidity the letter written by 
his deceased wife, can here discover the manner in 
which these "miracles" are achieved. One of the most 
diverting parts of Mr. Abbott's book is concerned with 
fashions in Spiritism: 

"As soon as the first mediums could induce the 
spirits of the departed to return to earth and rap 
on the tables and furniture, the fashion rapidly spread, 
and mediums all over the country sprang up with 
exactly these same powers. ... As soon as a leading 
medium spoke of his magnetic powers, all of the medi- 
ums in the country had magnetic powers, which, strange 
to say, could act on wood, and could also act in 
ways in which magnetism was never known to act. As 
soon as a leading medium started the fashion of having 
an Indian 'guide' [familiar spirit], all of the mediums 
in the country had Indian guides." "A medium once 
told me," says Mr. Abbott, "that the public never 
knew half of the money that is gathered by mediums. 
. . . He also said that it was not the common people 
who are the best patrons of mediums, but doctors, law- 



THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 43 

yers, merchants, teachers, and the more intelligent class 
of persons" — the people, in other words, who have 
acquired some culture, and have paid for it by apostasy 
from the faith of their childhood. 

From David Abbott's expose it may be inferred 
that belief in the genuineness of spirit manifestations, 
clairvoyancy and other forms of magic, is induced in 
two ways: first, by the skill of the performer, and, 
second, by the inability of the victim to observe what 
really takes place. Even the initiated have to be on 
their guard to avoid being taken in. Indeed, a part 
of the mediums ' skill consists in producing that con- 
fusion of mind which makes the visitor an easy prey. 
It is possible, for example, for one person to pretend 
to have both his hands in contact with those of another, 
while all the while one of them is free to fan the air, 
to move musical instruments about, and to strike the 
dupe on the face and head. Extraordinary pains are 
taken to prearrange the manifestations of the seance. 
Many of the audience-chambers of the Spiritists are 
fitted with elaborate contrivances — curtains, trap-doors 
and concealed entrances which hide and admit confeder- 
ates. One medium uses "many elegant costumes, all 
made of the finest silk." He has one piece "consisting 
of twenty-one yards of the finest white French bridal 
veiling, which can be contained in a pint cup." This, 
after having been painted with a luminous fluid, brings 
the spirit world into the most dingy hall. And in all 
performances the means employed to confuse and dis- 
tract the witness are varied. 

Then, too, clairvoyants often have a detective system 
by which they learn the circumstances of their clients. 
When in doubt about what to say they may make asser- 
tions with a rising inflection of the voice; and in this 
way they get involuntary answers. The visitor will 



44 THE GREAT NIBLO AND HIS RIVALS. 

probably deny afterwards that he has made any re- 
sponse. "Systems of pumping or fishing are an art 
with mediums, and they grow very expert at it, and do 
it so naturally that it takes an expert to detect that he 
himself is giving the medium information." 

The New York Nation said in a review of Mr. 
Abbott's book: "The author's disclosures should make 
any unbiased reader more than ever skeptical as to 
even the best authenticated stories of modern miracles. 
The professional medium may not earn his money 
honestly, but he earns it by great cleverness and in- 
dustry. Men who have had a limited experience of the 
world are unfitted to outwit such shrewd and nimble- 
fingered men and women." 



CHAPTER FIVE. 

Science and the Seance. 

IN view of the facts adduced in the preceding chapter, 
the attitude of those who hold that Spiritism is 
simply a delusion, and that all its phenomena are based 
on fraud and trickery, is readily understood. So 
frequent have been the exposures of mediums ; so openly 
do the advertisements and claims of many others bear 
the stamp of charlatanry on their foreheads; so many 
have turned against their confreres and, on the public 
platform, confessed themselves penitent cheats and hum- 
bugs; so successfully have most of the phenomena of 
the seance been imitated by sleight-of-hand performers 
and popular "magicians" — that no other attitude but 
that of an intense skepticism appears justifiable in the 
light of common sense. All mediums are frauds, and 
the adherents of the cult, their deluded dupes — such 
seems, to most students of the problem, a more reason- 
able position to take than the assumption that the 
departed spirits are in communion with the living, and 
for such purpose employ certain sensitized persons 
called "mediums." 

The great majority of those who deny the genuine- 
ness of Spiritistic phenomena, in each given instance 
of spirit revelations assume, as an axiom, the unreality 
of spirit communication, and, reasoning from this major 
premise, proceed to demonstrate the probable method 
by which the result has been obtained. That there was 

45 



46 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

deception is regarded as a valid presumption in every 
case. It only remains to be shown how the medium 
worked her trick, or how she obtained the information 
which she (or he) announces as a spirit revelation. 

Typical of this attitude over against the Spiritist 
doctrine are the following "common-sense" explana- 
tions of the manner in which the presumable deception 
was worked in given instances. 

In the Record-Herald (Chicago) of Dec. 1, 1901, 
a contributor added his experiences to a symposium on 
Spiritist manifestations, as follows:* 

"I read with a great deal of interest 'The Confes- 
sions of Mrs. Piper,' which you published some time 
ago; also the article on Professor Hyslop in last 
Sunday's edition of the Record-Herald. The most 
important question ever asked in this world is: 'If 
a man die, shall he live again?' and it is as new to-day 
as it was in the times of Job. 

"A few months since I lost my wife. It seemed as 
if the whole earth had fallen from beneath me. I had 
a -Christian's faith that she had gone to the Christian's 
heaven, but there are times when faith weakens and 
stricken mortals cry out for something more. Believing 
is not knowing. I began to doubt. Would I ever meet 
my wife again? If so, would I know her, love her? 
There was no answer to my doubts and my fears. I 
could only suffer. 

"One day a friend called on me. He had lost his 
wife years before, and sympathized with me. In the 



*The Record-Herald introduced this story with the following editorial 
remarks: "The recent articles in the Sunday Record-Herald regarding 
Mrs. Piper, Professor Hyslop, Spiritualism and telepathy have attracted 
wide attention, and, as it were, have centered public attention in a measure 
on the future state. Another remarkable addition to the series is herewith 
presented. The Sunday Record-Herald is not permitted to publish the 
name of the writer, but it can assure its readers that he is trustworthy, 
and, while not highly distinguished, is still a man of some mark in the 
political and literary world. His story is notable in many respects, and is 
worthy the consideration of an investigating public." 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 47 

agony of my heart I cried out, 'Oh, if I only knew 
my wife yet lived! I believe, but I do not know.' 

1 1 He looked at me curiously, and then asked : ' B , 

what would you give to know that your wife lives, to 
even talk with her?' 

" 'Give! I would give anything, if such a thing 
were possible,' was my answer. 

" 'It is possible,' he responded quietly; 'I have 
talked with my wife since she died.' 

"I could only stare at him in amazement, but at last 
managed to ejaculate: 'Are you crazy?' 

11 'Not in the least,' he responded; 'but there is a 
medium — ' 

"He then told me of a medium in the city who 
had extraordinary powers. She was not a public medi- 
um — in fact, it was hard work to get a sitting with 
her. If he could arrange a sitting, would I go, if 
nothing more than for curiosity? 

" 'Yes.' 

"It took him two months before he arranged the 
sitting. It was to be in the evening. I took another 
friend with me, a cool, hard-headed man. He had 
lost a son some years before, but believed in Spirit- 
ualism no more than I did — in fact, was inclined to 
take a materialistic view of things. 

"We found the medium to be a pleasant-faced 
woman, apparently about forty years of age. She was 
slender and looked to be in delicate health. She was 
modest and retiring and seemed averse to speak of her 
powers. With her were two young women, one her 
daughter. 

"The room in which the sitting took place was an 
ordinary parlor off of the sitting-room. The room, 
from a casual observation, had no furniture except a 
center-table and some chairs. There was nothing on 



48 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

the center-table except a very ordinary-looking tin 
horn. I picked it up and looked at it. It was made 
in three sections, so as to close up like a telescope. 
When opened its full length it was about eighteen 
inches long. 

"I asked the medium what it was for. She replied 
that it was to collect the tones of the spirit's voice, 
and render it more audible. 

" There were six of us in the room — the medium, 
two young ladies, my two friends, and myself. We 
were seated around the center-table, each lady placing 
her hands on her knees and a gentleman placing his 
hands over hers, so that she could not stir or move 
without the gentleman holding her hands knowing it. 
I can only vouch for the young lady whose hands I 
held. She did not move during the whole seance. My 
friends say the same of the ladies whose hands they 
held. 

"When we were told how to sit, the medium ex- 
tinguished the lights, and we were in the dark. In 
the case of Mrs. Piper all chances of fraud were elimi- 
nated. Here, I am free to confess, they were not. Yet 
what happened was so much more remarkable than 
anything told by Professor Hyslop that, even sus- 
pecting fraud, it still remains inexplicable. 

"After we had become seated, and the lights were 
turned off, the medium asked the young ladies to sing. 
They sang, in low, sweet tones, that well-known hymn, 
1 Shall We Gather at the River?' 

"The hymn finished, we sat for a short time in 
silence, when I heard the horn move, then a sound 
as if it had been taken from the table. A moment 
afterward I received three sharp taps on my left breast. 

"Then came an audible voice, perfectly distinct, 
but speaking in an aspirate tone. Then came in sue- 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 49 

cession what purported to be the spirits of a son, a 
daughter and the wife of my Spiritualistic friend, and 
they held quite extended conversations. 

"But this article has to do with only what happened 
to myself. My thoughts were now entirely on my wife. 
Would she come? Was it a hoax my Spiritualistic 
friend was playing on me? 

"When one spirit got through with the horn we 
could hear it placed back on the table, and another 
would take it up. Sometimes it would sound as if 
dropped quite a distance. 

"At last the horn was taken up, and then came 
the words, as plainly as if spoken by a living person: 

"'Papa! Papa! Papa!' 

"Still, with my entire thoughts fixed on my wife, 
I had no idea that the message was for me. 

" 'Is that you, G ?' asked my Spiritualistic 

friend, thinking his son had returned. 

" 'No, no! I don't want you,' was the answer. 

"Then my other friend, thinking of the boy he lost, 
asked: 'Is it I you want?' 

" 'No, no! I don't want you.' 

' ' Then, much perplexed, I asked : ' Is it I you want ? ' 

" 'Yes, yes! Oh, papa, how glad I am to see you.' 

" 'Who is it?' I asked, astounded. 

I l l T > 

"It was the name of a little boy I had lost years 
before while residing in a neighboring State. No one 
present, not even my friends, knew I ever had such 
a child. I had not been thinking of him — had not 
thought of him for weeks. It was only of my wife 
I was thinking. Still with my thoughts full of her, I 
asked : 

" 'Where is your mother?' 

" 'She is here. She is going to talk to you pres- 



50 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

ently. Oh, papa, how glad I am for this opportunity 
to talk with you. I am happy, perfectly happy.' 

"Every word was distinctly spoken. 

"After another spirit had talked there came in 

lower tones, but distinct: 'A ; it's A ,' the name 

of my wife. 

"Now here was a peculiarity. During her last 
illness my wife almost always alluded to herself in the 

third person. It was 'A wants this,' instead of, 

'I want it.' 

" 'Oh, A , is this you? Can it be you?' I asked 

in a doubting voice. 

" 'B , don't doubt! don't doubt!' was the an- 
swer, in an aggrieved voice. 

" 'A , if this be you, can you tell me what hap- 
pened before you died and where you died?' 

" 'I died away from home in a hospital, but don't 

talk about it. I can't talk about it. B , don't 

grieve so over my death. I am happy. The children 
are here. Mother is here.' 

. "Then came the sudden query: 'B , what did 

you do with my things? Don't you remember when 
you went up in the chamber and opened my trunk and 
took out my black dress and looked at it and cried 
so? I was right by you then.' 

"A few days after her burial I had gone alone 
to her trunk, took out her things, and, unfolding a 
black dress which she was accustomed to wear, had 
shed many burning tears over it. But the circumstance 
had passed from my mind. Certainly I had not 
thought of it for days. 

"She then bade me good-by, saying she would talk 
to me again before I went away. 

"After two or three other so-called spirits had 
talked, the words 'Papa!' 'Papa!' again were heard. 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 51 

" 'Is that you, I V I asked. 

'"No, it's E .' 

"It was the name of a little girl I had lost some 
seven years before. 

" 'Why, E ,' I answered, 'you can't remember 

me; you were scarcely more than a year old when you 
died.' 

" 'But I have seen you since and loved you. Now I 
have talked with you I shall love you more than ever. 
Oh, papa, how glad I am to see you, and talk with 
you.' 

"There now came the sound of two kisses. The 
kisses were not pressed to my lips or cheek, but seemed 
to be a foot or two away. 

" 'E , is your mother there yet?' 

" 'Yes, and she will talk with you again presently. 
Isn't she a nice, sweet mamma? Papa, when mamma 
died I was there. Don't you remember after she died, 
and you went to go out of the room, you nearly fell, 
and the doctor caught you, and told you not to grieve 
so; mamma was better off?' 

"A true circumstance, but one I had entirely for- 
gotten, for the same thing had been told me by many 
others. Could this have been telepathy, something 
entirely forgotten by me? 

"I then said, 'Darling, I have a picture of you 
at home.' 

" 'Yes, it hangs over your desk. Isn't it cute? 
Now, good-by, papa, and God bless you.' 

"My wife came again. She said: 

" 'Oh, B , how I bless you for coming here to 

talk with me ! Is it not wonderful we can talk ? How 

glad I am you came. B , don't, don't grieve over 

me. Mother is here. Your father and brother are 
here. Uncle is here, the children are here. We are 



52 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

all together, and all so happy. I can't talk any more 

now, but do, B , come again, and I will write you 

a communication. Good'-by, and God bless you.' 

"The above are the facts as they actually occurred. 
I have no explanation to offer. One of three things 
must be true. The voices were from the other world, 
the medium had a confederate concealed who did the 
talking, or she herself was an accomplished ventril- 
oquist. 

"Even admitting fraud, by what power were the 
answers given ? There was no hesitation. The talk was 
as natural as if the person had been before me. I 
know not what to think; it is natural for man to 
doubt. I doubt. Would I still doubt if one were 
raised from the dead? — 5." 

If the writer of this report had no explanation to 
offer, he was manifestly impressed by the intimate 
knowledge which the medium displayed concerning 
matters which no one but the writer might be presumed 
to remember. The article was read by one who was 
skeptical regarding the Spiritistic claim, and who had 
an explanation. He addressed the same paper a week 
later, as follows: 

"In the Record-Herald of last Sunday a gentleman 
relates how he conversed with his wife's spirit through 
the aid of a medium. 

"The investigator was all but convinced of the 
reliability of the test, because the alleged spirits of his 
wife and children recalled several incidents that had 
passed out of his mind. During his wife's illness 
he had stumbled in leaving her sick-room, and had been 
caught by the doctor. This incident was recalled by 
the spirit of a daughter who had died seven years 
before the mother at the age of one year, but had seen 
the accident from the spirit world. The wife recalled 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 53 

the fact that after her death the husband had gone 
to her trunk, taken out a dress and cried over it. The 
one-year-old child — strange that it could speak* — also 
called his attention to the fact that her picture hung 
over his desk. 

"The spirits told nothing about their world, nothing 
of consequence, apparently, except that they were to- 
gether and happy; but they urged the husband and 
father to call again, presumably through the same 
medium. 

"This test was made under the usual conditions 
imposed by Spiritualistic mediums, with a dark room, 
a mysterious trumpet that floated about in the air, and 
with a group of six persons touching hands in a circle 
about a table. The medium was aided by two young 
ladies, one of them her daughter, and the investigator 
was accompanied by two friends. We see here only 
such conditions as have been exposed a hundred times 
as trickery. The investigator argues that the medium 
could not have known of the incidents recalled by the 
alleged spirits. 

"But he explains the sitting was made through a 
friend, a believer in Spiritualism, who told him it was 
'hard work to get a sitting' because the woman was not 
a public medium. The writer says: 'It took him two 
months to arrange the sitting.' The skeptic naturally 
concludes the medium improved those two months to 
'work up some material' to impress her prospective 
customer. 

"This is not an uncommon practise, and there is 
nothing wonderful in the experience of this gentleman. 
He was much wrought up over the loss of his wife, 



*A common occurrence in "spirit" communications. Spiritists do not 
find that at all remarkable, since the spirits are believed to develop men- 
tally, and also in their spirit body, after death. 



54 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

and might have been convinced by a clever medium 
without the knowledge of specific incidents in his life, 
supposed to be known to no other present, though he 
may have casually mentioned them to some friend 
months before, and forgotten that fact." 

All of which is undoubtedly true, as far as it goes. 
But does it go far enough? "We see here only such 
conditions as have been exposed a hundred times as 
trickery." Does that prove trickery in the present 
instance? The information might have been "worked 
up" during the two months. Indeed, such is a common 
practise among mediums, and it looks like a reasonable 
assumption in this case. But where is the evidence of 
fraud? Undoubtedly, Spiritists would reason thus: 
Some doctors of medicine are quacks — does this prove 
that my house physician is a quack? Some lawyers 
build their practise on methods that would not bear 
the light — does that prove that my attorney is a crook? 
Some mediums have been exposed as shams — does that 
prove that there are no genuine cases of spirit control? 

The conversion of the American poetess, Ella 
Wheeler Wilcox, to Spiritism, has been referred to. 
When she came to England after losing her husband 
in the war, she said in a public statement: 

"For more than a year I sought for the fulfillment 
of the compact.* During that period I moved from 
place to place, seeking contact with, and experiments 
with, all sorts of psychics and mediums. Some curious 
phenomena were displayed for my benefit, but always 
I came away unsatisfied and uncertain. Yet in those 
awful days and weeks and months I knew my husband 
was living, and longing to communicate with me. 



*She had an agreement with her husband that whichever should die 
first would get into mediumistic communication with the other. 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 55 

"It was in the early evening of Sept. 10, 1917, that 
the door suddenly opened. I was experimenting with 
a ouija-board when a friend called, and, in a light 
and merry mood, placed her hands on the board. In 
that moment the board seemed to leap into life. Mes- 
sages were spelt out at a rate we were quite unable 
to follow, and they were of a character which left no 
doubt in my mind that I was at last in touch with my 
husband. They were calm, practical and reassuring — 
not the useless and meaningless phrases too often put 
forward by false mediums as being communications 
from the dead. 

"I have dealt with this matter fully in my book 
The Worlds and I, which will be published shortly. As 
yet, we are only at the fringe of the great problem. 
We can and shall make progress in this, as in other 
problems. The world war has given a great impetus to 
the study. 

"I have been asked why a material object, such 
as ouija-board, should be necessary for communication 
between husband and wife. Well, if only a street 
separates them in the material world, they need a 
telephone or some other medium of communication. 
They call up an operator to connect the wires — an 
operator who may not possess any special culture, but 
who knows how to connect wires. There is nothing 
more impossible in the use of a clairvoyant or a ouija- 
board in the one case, than the use of wires in the 
other." 

This story called forth the following reply from 
Mr. Albert C. White, a British scientist of some note: 

"The very nature and quality of the proofs ad- 
vanced in its support predispose one to skepticism of 
the assumption of Spiritualism. The case mentioned 
by Mrs. Wilcox is typical. Here is a lady who experi- 



56 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

ences for ' awful days and weeks and months' anxiety 
to communicate with her husband, who has died. 

"She takes great pains to achieve her desire. 

"Her efforts are fruitless. 

"Suddenly a lady friend of hers, 'in light and 
merry mood,' places her hands on a ouija-board, and, 
lo! the long-sought communication is established. The 
thing is as preposterous as it sounds. 

"If it is asked, 'How do you account for the 
automatic writing?' I answer, first, that such writing 
has been accounted for on occasions by anything but 
supernormal intervention; and that, secondly, such 
intervention is inconsistent with its character. 

"What was that character in this case? 

"It was— 

"(1) Dependent on the ofiices of a lady 'in a light 
and merry mood,' but irresponsive to the efforts of 
'awful days and weeks and months' of earnest inquiry. 

"(2) 'Spelt out at a rate we were quite unable to 
follow,' and yet was 

"(3) 'Calm, practical and reassuring.' 

"The evidence for communication with the dead 
is generally of a similar character, and is dependent on 
certain external agencies as to the reliability of which 
the hostile witnesses are overwhelming, both in numbers 
and authority. 

"It is an undoubted fact that many intelligent 
persons have, as a result of psychic experiments, become 
confident that it is possible to erect a bridge 'across 
the void' of death. But nearly all such converts to 
Spiritualism will admit, if they are questioned closely, 
that they base that confidence on their inability to find 
any other or better explanation of the phenomena they 
have witnessed than that of the Spiritualists. 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 57 

''That is to say, their confidence is based on an 
assumption. 

"The history of mankind is a record of discovery. 
What the men of yesterday regarded as miraculous the 
men of to-day accept as material. There are still 
mighty tracks of unexplored country, as to which sci- 
ence is silent. But every day it is exploring and learn- 
ing and teaching more. To the rational mind there is 
only one course to adopt in the face of new facts: 
It is the course of investigation and of reasoning from 
the basis of the known. 

"To those who, like the present writer, adopt that 
course, Spiritualistic phenomena appear to contradict 
all we know of physical science and natural law. 

"Sometimes we are frankly puzzled. But the last 
thing that occurs to us as reasonable in such circum- 
stances is to forthwith assume the truth of the most 
unreasonable 'explanation' of the puzzle with which 
we are acquainted." 

Once more we ask: Granted that the agencies by 
means of which spirit communications are obtained 
have been proved unreliable in a vast number of cases, 
does this circumstance militate against the genuineness 
of the tests in a given instance? The critic accuses 
the adherents of Spiritism as basing their conclusions 
on an assumption; viz., the inability to find a better 
explanation of mediumistic phenomena than the Spirit- 
istic one. But is not his own skepticism based on an 
assumption as large as that of the Spiritists; viz., that 
the possibility of spirit control is "unreasonable," "the 
most unreasonable explanation" of all? Here is an 
a-priori judgment, and no such judgment can stand in 
the forum of science. The critic himself says: "The 
history of mankind is a record of discovery" — which 
reminds us of the derision with which scientists have 



58 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

greeted practically every advance in the various do- 
mains of knowledge when first reported (for instance, 
the discovery of bacteria by Pasteur, vaccination, Dr. 
Carrel's treatment of deep wounds, etc.), because 
utterly "unreasonable" and out of harmony with "the 
known. ' J 

But let us approach the problem a little more closely. 
What is the present attitude of scientific thought on 
the matter of psychic phenomena? Scientists are 
divided into three distinct camps in their judgment of 
Spiritism. 

1. There is one group which is convinced of the 
genuineness of these phenomena, and, moreover, believes 
them to be caused by "unembodied intelligences, ' ' 
possibly the spirits of the departed. Among these 
sponsors of the Spiritistic doctrine there are several 
Englishmen of great prominence in the scientific world, 
such as Sir Oliver Lodge, Prof. Frederick H. Myers, 
the late Alfred Russel Wallace, and the late Professor 
Crookes. Some hold the Spiritistic position (that the 
spirits of the dead are the "intelligences" in question) 
to be proved through the most exacting tests which 
modern science can devise. 

2. The great mass of scientific students of this prob- 
lem maintain a stoutly negative attitude. The testi- 
mony of such men as Lodge and Crookes does not shake 
them in their skepticism. Says Albert C. White : 

"It is quite usual to mention Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir 
William Barrett and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in order 
to give what looks like scientific sanction to spook- 
hunting. But the eminence of these gentlemen in their 
own departments of science or literature is nothing to 
the point. It may be safely asserted that the over- 
whelming majority of men of science in this country 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 59 

and in Europe are in opposition to Sir Oliver Lodge 
and his friends in this matter." 

Typical of this skeptical attitude is the following 
article by E. W. Scripture, Ph.D., M.D., of the Yale 
Psychological Laboratory, which appeared in the Inde- 
pendent some years ago: 

"In every large city there are hundreds of Spirit- 
ualistic mediums who make their living by receiving 
messages from the dead, by predicting the future, etc. 
Their mysterious rappings, rope-tying, cabinet mani- 
festations, slate-writing, letter-reading and so on are 
more wonderful than the dynamo, more startling than 
wireless telegraphy, more fascinating than the flying- 
machine. The problems they solve are the most im- 
portant of all. The turbine steamer bridges the Atlan- 
tic, but Spiritualism opens an excursion route across 
the Styx. The telephone enables us to talk with our 
friends a thousand miles away, but the medium lets us 
communicate with the souls of the departed. Their 
results even prove the immortality of the soul. Every 
man must put the question to himself: Are these not 
the most important phenomena in the world to which 
I should give my attention? And my money, also? 
Shouldn't there be richly endowed 'professors,' who 
should devote their entire time to such investigations? 

" 'It is no light task to collect a census of coin- 
cidental experiences having scientific value for proving 
the supernormal, and it should have the financial sup- 
port commensurate with its importance on any theory 
whatsoever of the facts' (Hyslop). 

"The answer is, Yes, if a single one can be proved 
to be free of trickery or gross blundering. 

"I can not here enter on any discussion of the 
usual phenomena of Spiritualism; they have, one and 
all, been shown to be tricks — tricks so clever that it is 



60 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

well worth an occasional dollar to be taken in by them. 
Mr. Abbott, in a fascinating book, Behind the Scenes 
with the Mediums, has given complete inside informa- 
tion concerning all the medium's work. Many of these 
secrets are sold by mediums to pupils at prices from 
$2.50 to $98 (marked down). Mr. Abbott was obliged 
to pay for a number of them. Carrington, in The 
Physical Phenomena of Spiritism, also gives some ex- 
cellent descriptions. Hereafter every man can become 
his own medium. 

"Does any educated person still believe in these 
things? 'Professor' Camille Flammarion, Director of 
the Observatory of Jovisy, does. 'I purpose to show in 
this book, Mysterious Psychic Forces, what truth there 
is in the phenomena of table-turning, table-movings 
and table-rappings, in the communications received 
therefrom, in levitations that contradict the laws 
of gravity, etc., etc' 'Mediumistic experiences might 
form (and doubtless soon will form) a chapter in 
physics.' He gives photographs of tables suspended 
in the air by the mystic force of Busapia Palladino. 
The medium commands a 'spirit' to raise the table. 
'This being appears to come into existence and then 
become non-existent as soon as the experiment is ended. ' 
Professor Crookes, the celebrated chemist, believes in 
the movement of heavy substances when at a distance 
from the medium, in the rising of tables and chairs 
off the ground without contact with any person, in 
human beings rising and floating about, in the appear- 
ance of disconnected hands either self-luminous or 
visible by ordinary light, in a bell passing through the 
wall of a room and a flower passing through a table, in 
the creation of a lifelike figure, 'Katie,' who sobbed, 
talked, shook hands, and even submitted to a 'gentle- 
manly' embrace. Professor Milesi believes in self- 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 61 

playing mandolins, in pianos that jump up and down, 
etc. Professor Palmieri felt himself embraced by his 
dead daughter and everybody heard the sound of a 
kiss. Professor Richet believes in anything that comes 
along. 

"Professor Hyslop [The Widow's Mite, Science and 
the Future Life, Borderland of Psychical Research, 
Enigmas of Psychical Research] believes in certain 
'clairvoyant' persons who can perceive objects or scenes 
at a distance and without any of the normal impres- 
sions of sense, in the appearance of ' apparitions ' of 
dead persons, in dreams that reveal events happening 
at a distance, in telepathy or the direct communication 
of one mind with another, in 'crystal gazing,' or the 
i supernormal' acquisition of knowledge by looking at 
a bright object, in premonitions of future events, etc., 
etc. In fact, there seems to be very little left that he 
won't believe. Yet, like my clever friend, the showman, 
'Professor' Baldwin, the White Mahatma, he is addicted 
to such phrases as 'the matter is supernormal,' and to 
indicating that some mysterious force is at work whose 
nature we do not yet know (and for whose investigation 
we need endowed professors). 

"Let us accept Professor Hyslop 's challenge: 'It 
is high time that investigations of this kind should 
be endowed as are many others of less importance. . . . 
They will spend millions in North Pole expeditions, 
in deep-sea dredging for a new fish, in biological in- 
quiries to show a protoplasmic source of life, and in 
astronomic observations that lead only to speculation 
about planetary life — in short, anything to throw light 
on man's origin, but not a cent to ascertain with any 
scientific assurance a word about his destiny.' 

"The problems of man's destiny, of a possible 
future life, of extraordinary powers of foreseeing 



62 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

events, of seeing things at a distance with a spiritual 
eye, etc., are certainly far more worthy of investigation 
than any problems now undertaken. But — these prob- 
lems have been undertaken; money has been spent; a 
whole society for psychical research has been hard at 
work for twenty-five years; whole series of volumes 
have been published. And — the result has been entirely 
negative; not one single fact bearing on any of the 
problems has been established. At the present time 
there is money by the barrelful for any one who will 
produce even the shadow of a fact of this kind. Show 
me a person who by premonition will predict a rise 
in stocks and I make him a multimillionaire over night. 
One who could by clairvoyance see what is happening 
at a distance wouldn't need to work for a living. If 
telepathy, or thought transference, had even the most 
microscopic foundation in fact, it would be instantly 
commercialized as a rival to telegraphy, telephony, and 
even the postal service. Show the world even the 
faintest hope of trustworthy investigations of the im- 
mortality of the soul, and the whole body of scientific 
men would plunge into the work. The mountain has 
been in labor for such a long time, and it has brought 
forth not even a mouse. 

"But why do the professors still believe? Let us 
be just; they don't. Out of all this magnificent body 
of men (just think of Koch, Virchow, Rontgen, Behr- 
ing, and the thousands of other great names!) Dr. 
Funk can find only ten to mention as believers in these 
vagaries. Among them there is not a single German 
and not a Frenchman of prominence. Of the English- 
men, the famous chemist Crookes is like a child in his 
simple faith and careless experiments as soon as he 
leaves his own domain. The three Americans we will 
leave to their colleagues. 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 63 

"Why do these few remainders believe contrary 
to all evidence? 

"A study of their characters will show the reason. 
One of them, a professor of psychiatry, has written 
books on insanity, genius and criminality that have 
been brilliant, startling and original, but in every 
respect utterly devoid of scientific worth; every thesis 
proved by him could just as well have been disproved 
by the very facts he collected. Another is a professor 
of physiology in a world-famed university. No kinder, 
simpler, more charming man ever lived ; full of enthusi- 
asm and ambition to discover some great truth, his very 
sincerity and simplicity render him an easy prey to 
the clever schemer. I have seen him, after a test of a 
musical prodigy, clasp the child to his breast with 
enthusiastic tears — whereas the audience had seen the 
mother's tricks. 

"A university life is in some respects like that of 
a monastery; the inmates are to a great degree pro- 
tected from the evil world outside. The standards 
of ethics are higher, and there is greater faith in one's 
fellowmen. Every swindler knows that a college pro- 
fessor is usually an 'easy mark.' It is only natural 
that among such men there are a few who are caught 
by the Spiritualistic and telepathic humbugs — and once 
caught in print, with true academic obstinacy, never 
back down on what they have said." 

3. A third group of scientists occupy intermediate 
ground. They make free admission that certain phe- 
nomena connected with mediumism are genuine, and, 
moreover, are not explicable by any reference to known 
physical laws. But they believe that the Spiritistic 
interpretation of these facts is quite out of harmony 
with experimental science, since the agency of disem- 
bodied spirits assumes the persistence of personality 



64 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

after death; in other words, assumes the immortality 
of the soul. And that is an "unscientific" assump- 
tion! Modern science is materialistic. It denies the 
existence of spirit. There is in man no such thing as 
a "vital principle" — a "soul." Hence there can be 
no life after death, and, hence, no spirit communication. 
The phenomena of mediumship are explained as opera- 
tions of a mysterious "psychic force." 

As a representative of this group we shall quote 
Thomson J. Hudson, Ph.D., LL.D., who wrote in 1902. 
It will be noted that Dr. Hudson views even the as- 
sumption of a "psychic force" as opening the way for 
a reversal of scientific opinion regarding the immor- 
tality of the soul. 

"Many years of time and oceans of ink have been 
w r asted in the discussion of the physical phenomena 
of Spiritism, such as table-tipping, levitation, slate- 
writing, etc., each side taking it for granted that the 
whole question of Spiritism could be settled forever 
by proving, on the one hand, or disproving on the 
other, the supernormal character of the phenomena. 
During nearly half a century the evidence for Spiritism 
was practically confined to that class of phenomena. 
If a table was levitated without physical contact or 
mechanical appliances, Spiritists proclaimed and be- 
lieved it to be demonstrative proof that spirits of the 
dead communicate with the living. Nor was this 
estimate of evidential values confined to the rank and 
file of Spiritists. Learned professors, doctors and even 
lawyers were carried off their logical feet by seeing 
tables lifted into the air and chairs carried about the 
room by invisible hands. 

"Thus the late Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia, emeritus 
professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, fell an easy victim to that species of logic in 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 65 

the early days of Spiritism. Commencing his investi- 
gations as a skeptic, he constructed several ingenious 
machines by which he was able to demonstrate the 
existence of a force in man capable of moving ponder- 
able bodies without physical contact (telekinesis*), and 
then he immediately rushed into print with a book 
entitled Spiritualism Scientifically Demonstrated. That 
Professor Hare should fall into such an error may be 
accounted for by the fact that in his day no other than 
the Spiritistic hypothesis had been seriously advanced 
to account for the facts. Besides, scientists in those 
days generally contented themselves by simply denying 
the existence of the phenomena and refusing to investi- 
gate, which was a tacit admission that if phenomena 
were true, the Spiritistic explanation followed. The 
result was that those who did investigate and verified 
the phenomena naturally felt justified in accepting the 
only explanation offered. It followed as a natural 
consequence that the great body of Spiritists believed, 
and they still believe, that the claims of Spiritism are 
demonstrated to be true by the phenomena of tele- 
kinesis. 

"Nor is it at all strange that the rank and file 
should so believe since they have such modern examples 
as are found in the attitude of such scientists as Alfred 
Russel Wallace and Sir William Crookes. Each of 
these eminent savants verified the physical phenomena 
of Spiritism, especially telekinesis, by indubitable tests, 
and each ended by declaring himself a convert to 
Spiritism. No one can doubt the ability of either of 
these gentlemen to make correct observations of facts 
when conducting a scientific investigation, for they 
were both trained in the strictest schools of scientific 



*Tele — distance ; kinesis — moving force ; a force able to produce motion 
at a distance, without contact. 



66 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

inquiry. So, when they tell us that they have verified 
the fact that ponderable bodies can be moved without 
physical contact, and describe and illustrate the process 
of verification, ive are bound to believe them. But 
when they assume to draw conclusions from those facts, 
their reputation for habits of close scientific observation 
of mere phenomena no longer commands confidence, 
for it is one thing to be a close observer of facts, and 
quite a different thing to be able to draw a correct 
conclusion from those facts. In other words, it does 
not necessarily follow that a scientist is also a logician. 
In point of fact it often happens that the closest and 
most minute observers of facts are the least competent 
to formulate from them a correct generalization, or to 
estimate their evidential value. A striking example 
is found in Sir William Crookes, in his treatment of 
psychic phenomena in general, and telekinesis in par- 
ticular, and the example becomes still more striking 
when his conclusions are contrasted with those of his 
collaborators, Sergt. Edward W. Cox and Dr. Huggins, 
F. E. S., in whose presence the tests were made. 

"Professor Crookes, the scientist, eminent as the 
discoverer of a new metal, and as having rendered 
possible the discovery of the Rontgen rays, devised the 
instruments of precision by which telekinesis was 
demonstrated, made the experiments and became a 
Spiritualist. Sergeant Cox, an eminent lawyer, skilled 
in logic, practised in the art of testing truth, detecting 
falsehood and estimating evidential values, observed 
the same facts, and found that they excluded Spiritism 
as a factor in the case. They both agreed, however, 
that their experiments demonstrated the existence in 
man of a hitherto unrecognized force, which they 
agreed in designating as 'psychic force' — 'a force 
emanating from, or in some manner directly dependent 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 67 

on, the human organization.' In this they both agreed, 
although they ultimately disagreed as to whether the 
co-operation of the spirits of the dead was necessary 
to set the force in motion. Sergeant Cox mentioned 
eighteen characteristics of the phenomena as developed 
in the experiments made in his presence, each of which 
was wholly inconsistent with the Spiritistic theory. 
Professor Crookes, on the other hand, ultimately con- 
cluded that the Spiritistic theory was the only tenable 
one. I do not say that this particular series of experi- 
ments converted him to Spiritism, but I do say that in 
all his public utterances on the subject there is not the 
slightest evidence to show that his conversion was 
brought about by the observation of any other than 
the purely physical phenomena of Spiritism. And it 
is against the acceptance of this character and quality 
of evidence for Spiritism that I protest in the name 
of outraged science, logic and reason. Why? 

"1. Because the existence of a 'psychic force,' 
inherent in the human organism, a force capable of 
levitating heavy tables or other ponderable bodies with- 
out physical contact, is amply sufficient to account for 
all the purely physical phenomena of Spiritism. Ob- 
viously a physical force that is great enough to lift a 
table is great enough to produce any of the minor 
physical phenomena, such as slate-writing, etc. In 
either case the force is guided by intelligence — pre- 
sumably that of the medium — until the contrary is 
shown by competent evidence. 

"2. There is nothing in the purely physical phe- 
nomena of Spiritism that proves or disproves the 
Spiritistic hypothesis. The proof of the existence of 
psychic force, however, does, as Sergeant Cox justly 
remarks, 'shake to its foundation the materialism of 
modern science by the probability it raises that, as a 



68 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

fact in nature, there is in us an entity, distinct from 
the corporeal structure, which can exercise an active 
force, directed by intelligence, beyond the limits of the 
bodily powers.' He might have added that it also 
raises the presumption that this intelligent entity sur- 
vives the dissolution of the body, and that, therefore, 
spirits do exist beyond the grave. This much, in all 
candor, must be conceded to Spiritism. But it is one 
thing to create a presumption in favor of a life after 
death, and quite another to prove that spirits of the 
dead communicate messages to the living through 
mediums. 

1 ' And this is the crucial question raised by Spiritism 
— Do spirits of the dead communicate with the living 
through mediums?" 

Professor Thury, of Geneva, believed that the phe- 
nomena are due to an invisible fluid which he called 
"psychode." J. H. Fichte assumed the existence of an 
hitherto unknown vital force — "V. F." Du Prel coined 
the name "Od-force." 

However, this assumption of a psychic force, hitherto 
unsuspected and only known through mediumism in 
our own day, has not found favor with the great 
majority of scientists. It has been pertinently objected 
that the existence of such a force, acting out of con- 
formity (as in levitation and telekinesis, for instance) 
with the law of gravitation, would constitute an ex- 
ception to the universal law of the preservation of 
energy, and the essential oneness of all natural forces. 
As Dr. Wille, professor of psychiatry in Basle, says, in 
Der Spiritismus der Gegenwart (quoted in Lehre und 
Wehre, Vol. XL VI., p. 50) : "The fundamental law of 
all natural phenomena, the law of the preservation of 
energy and convertibility of natural forces, justifies us 
in rejecting the notion of new, unknown natural forces. 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 69 

And if there should be forces unknown to us, we may 
not predicate of them functions which truly contradict 
the working of all forces and laws now known to us 
[as would be the case if Spiritistic phenomena — mate- 
rializations, levitations, for instance — were due to a 
hitherto unknown psychic force]. The perfect law 
observable these thousands of years in natural phe- 
nomena forces us, on philosophic and scientific grounds, 
to reject the idea of such new forces; all the more so 
since the action of such unknown forces has never been 
demonstrated outside of Spiritism." In this opinion 
Dr. Wille voices what is practically the consensus of 
scientific men to-day. " Psychic force" has found 
no acceptance among anthropologists, nor among physi- 
cists ; it remains an unproved hypothesis, at best. 

Some investigators have sought in certain obscure 
and abnormal functionings of the human brain a point 
of contact which would explain actions of the medium 
under "spirit control." They point out the resem- 
blance to the instances of "secondary" or "multiple" 
personality, which recent research has discovered in 
such numbers, and which are due to perfectly natural, 
if often obscure, causes. In these, as a result of illness, 
a blow, a shock, or some other unusual stimulus, there 
is a partial or complete effacement of the original 
personality of the victim, and its replacement by a 
new personality, sometimes of radically different charac- 
teristics from the normal self. A sufficient example is 
the case of the Rev. Thomas C. Hanna, for knowledge 
of which the scientific world is indebted to Dr. Boris 
Sidis. Following a fall from his carriage, Hanna, a 
Connecticut clergyman, lost all consciousness of his 
identity, had no memory for the events of his life prior 
to the accident, recognized none of his friends, could not 
read or write, nor so much as walk or talk — was, in fact, 



70 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

like a child new born. On the other hand, as soon 
as the rudiments of education were acquired by him 
once more, he showed himself the possessor of a vig- 
orous, independent, self-reliant personality, lacking all 
knowledge of the original personality, but still able to 
adapt himself readily to his environment, and make 
headway in the world. Ultimately, through methods 
that are distinctively modern, Dr. Sidis was able to 
recall the vanished self, and, fusing the secondary self 
with it, restore the clergyman to his former sphere of 
usefulness, a normal, entire man. Now, the assumption 
is that it is possible to create, by an effort of the will, 
under favorable conditions, such a secondary self as 
is produced in some cases of severe illness or accident, 
and, furthermore, that such secondary selves may be 
made to assume the characteristics of real persons that 
have died. The strange case of Lurancy Vannum was 
thus explained by Richard Hodgson, of the Society of 
Psychical Research. There is on record, also, an 
instance of mediumship in which the medium, an 
amateur investigator of the phenomena of Spiritism, 
clearly recognized that his various impersonations were 
suggested to him by the spectators. This man, Charles 
H. Tout, a Vancouver schoolmaster, records that after 
attending a few seances with some friends he felt a 
strong impulse to turn medium himself, and assume 
a foreign personality. Yielding to the impulse, he 
discovered, much to his amazement, that, without losing 
complete control of his consciousness, he could develop 
a secondary self which would impose on the beholders 
as a discarnate "spirit." On one occasion he thus 
acted in a semi-conscious way the part of a dead 
woman, the mother of a friend present, and the im- 
personation was accepted as a genuine case of "spirit" 
control. On another, having given several successful 



SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 71 

impersonations, he suddenly felt weak and ill, and 
almost fell to the floor. 

Professor Myers, of Cambridge, in the course of 
his Psychical Research activities, gradually became con- 
vinced that over and beyond the self of which man is 
normally conscious there existed in every man a 
secondary self, endowed with faculties transcending 
those of the normal wakeaday self. To this he gave 
the name of the "subliminal self." In its practical 
working-out, this theory is identical with Dr. Car- 
penter's "unconscious cerebration ' ' hypothesis, by 
means of which he endeavored to account for various 
kinds of psychical manifestations. The British Spiritist 
leader, Horace Leaf, remarks: "The way he applied 
this undoubtedly useful discovery is often quite amus- 
ing, involving him in difficulties far greater than the 
one he was endeavoring to solve. By unconscious cere- 
bration he meant that there were often unconscious 
actions performed, both physically and mentally, that 
might lead the investigator to suppose that it was not 
he, but some extraneous entity, performing the action 
or expressing the thought. In applying it to table-tilting 
and planchette-writing, Carpenter would be to a large 
extent correct. Spiritists are, as a rule, quite prepared 
to admit that under certain circumstances much may 
influence the phenomena which comes only from the 
experimenter's own subconsciousness. But how it can 
explain the movements of objects at a distance from 
the medium or the materialization of a spirit form, it 
is impossible to conceive." (What Is This Spiritualism? 
p. 19f.) In this opinion, we can not but agree with 
Mr. Leaf. 

To sum up : The ' ' scientific ' ' explanations of Spirit- 
istic phenomena are either themselves based on un- 
proved assumptions ("psychic force"), or proceed on 



72 SCIENCE AND THE SEANCE. 

generalizations from obscure activities of the abnormal 
mind (' 'multiple personality," "subliminal self/' "un- 
conscious cerebration ") which might account for some 
of the "mental," but not at all for the so-called "phy- 
sical," phenomena of Spiritism (levitation, materiali- 
zation, direct writing, etc.). Nor will it do to relegate, 
a priori, all mediumistic phenomena into the domain of 
willful deception, since this position is found to be 
based, almost invariably, on a materialistic denial of 
immortality. Nor can it be said that mediums always 
practice deception because most of them, at one time 
or another, have been convicted of trickery. Account, 
as well we may, for most Spiritistic claims of commerce 
with the dead, as so much conscious fraud and decep- 
tion; grant that, in many cases of mediumship, the 
work begun for purposes of gain, by means of sleight 
of hand and elaborate systems of trickery, has later 
been continued with apparently sincere claims of super- 
natural endowments; granted, even, that the doubtful 
phenomena of suggestion, thought-transference, mental 
telepathy and mind-reading may account in part for 
the uncanny acquaintanceship with the affairs of their 
sitters which some mediums display in the trance 
state — still there remains a residuum of seance phe- 
nomena, for which none of these more or less scientific 
"explanations" is a solvent. 

How, then, do Spiritists actually receive messages 
from the dead? 



CHAPTER SIX. 

Miasmas from the Pit. 

ON the authority of a large number of scientifically 
trained investigators, the objective reality and 
genuineness of the so-called physical phenomena of 
Spiritism must be accepted as a fact which can not be 
successfully contested. After winnowing out the ad- 
mittedly large percentage of manifestations produced 
by fraudulent means, there remains a record of tests 
made under conditions which definitely exclude the 
possibility of delusion or self-delusion. 

Professor Crookes writes: "The assumption that 
there is a kind of mania or deception which suddenly 
seizes a whole roomful of intelligent persons who are 
otherwise in perfect health, and that they agree in the 
smallest details of the phenomena which they witness, 
seems more incredible to my mind than the facts to 
which they testify." 

Edward Wm. Cox reports: "We proceeded like 
detectives. We sat under the table while the vibrations 
were strongest. We held the hands and feet of the 
medium. Each hand in the circle was held by that of 
the neighbor. The gas burned brightly above us. Not 
one finger could have moved without attracting notice 
of some of the many eyes that were keeping watch. 
All our intellect was applied to the single purpose of 
inventing new tests, and we were finally constrained to 
admit that there was not the possibility of deception." 1 

73 



74 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

Professor Zoellner says that to assume that he and 
his friends were dnped by the mediums would be simply 
denying him ordinary judgment, and the ability to 
reason intelligently. 

Professor Vogel, of Berlin, who had not the slightest 
sympathy for Spiritism, has said: "I do not hesitate 
to admit that it is impossible simply to deny the 
actuality of Spiritistic phenomena. Some of them have 
been studied by such reliable observers that one can 
not doubt the correctness of their observations." 

Dr. Wm. James, professor of psychology in Harvard 
University, said: "In the course of time, thought 
transference, predictive hallucinations, crystal-gazing, 
yes, even apparitions, will be recognized by science. In 
my opinion science lies powerless in the dust in the 
face of these facts." 

Professor James said in June, 1896: "In the trances 
of this medium [Mrs. Piper] I can not resist the con- 
viction that knowledge appears which she has never 
gained by the ordinary waking use of her eyes and ears 
and wits. What the source of this knowledge may be 
I know not, and have not the glimmer of an explana- 
tory suggestion to make, but from admitting the fact 
of such knowledge, I can see no escape." 

Mr. W. F. Barrett, professor of experimental phy- 
sics in the University of Ireland, sums up the result 
of his own prolonged investigation of the subject in 
these brief words: "What I am prepared to assert, 
from my own experience, is that neither hallucination, 
imposture, mal-observation, misdescription, nor any 
other well-recognized cause, can account for the phe- 
nomena I have witnessed." 

Godfrey Eaupert, K.S.G., who has written several 
notable works to prove that there is no communication 
with the departed in these phenomena, says distinctly: 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 75 

"The phenomena have been under the observation of 
experts — in many instances men of a pronouncedly 
skeptical turn of mind — for a long series of years, and 
for all practical purposes the final verdict has been 
given. It is absolutely certain to-day that, under given 
conditions, abnormal phenomena occur, and that these 
phenomena are due to some kind of intelligence inde- 
pendent of, and apart from, the experimenter. The 
man who doubts this to-day is simply ignorant of the 
facts of the case, and unacquainted with the evidence 
which exists." 

The younger Fichte remarked concerning the phe- 
nomena of Spiritism: "Anything that has received such 
universal credence can not be regarded as solely a work 
of deception. Nor are there any theological grounds 
for rejecting them as such, and there is no lack of data 
which has been undeniably verified as genuine." 

The London Committee of Thirty-three, in 1871, 
declared in its report that "motion may be produced 
in solid bodies without material contact, by some hither- 
to unrecognized force operating within an undefined 
distance from the human organism, and beyond the 
range of muscular action;" and that "the force is 
frequently directed by intelligence." 

After applying every possible test for a space of 
two years, a German committee of investigation com- 
posed of physicians, jurists, and professors reported: 
"Although every test was applied which the united 
intellect of the committee was able to invent or suggest, 
and although every possibility of deception was ex- 
cluded, even the most skeptical was persuaded that the 
phenomena were real." The conclusions of the com- 
mittee were formulated as follows: "1. Under certain 
bodily or spiritual conditions of one or more present 
persons a force is observed sufficient to cause motion of 



76 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

heavy bodies without the application of muscular force, 
without contact or any material connection whatever 
between such body and any person. 2. This force is 
able to produce audible sounds apparently proceeding 
from solid bodies which are not in touch with, or in 
any other way acted upon, in a visible or a material 
manner, by the body of a present person, and that 
these sounds have been proved to proceed from such 
solid bodies, since the vibrations are plainly perceptible 
to the touch. 3. That this force is often directed by 
an intelligence." 

Dr. Friedrich Zoellner, professor of astrophysics in 
Leipzig University, observed in broad daylight certain 
phenomena which, he maintained, are not to be ex- 
plained as the product of trickery. In his presence 
writing was produced between double slates, needles 
became magnetized although they had not been touched, 
an accordion played while it lay on the table, a large 
salt-water shell passed through the table-top. In a 
statement made Dec. 6, 1877, Bellachini, a famous pro- 
fessor of sleight of hand, declared the phenomena 
observed by Zoellner to be absolutely inexplicable. 

Prof. Sir William Crookes, who entered the field of 
investigation with every power to resist and to detect 
imposture, and who carried on a series of extraordinary 
experiments at intervals during six months with a 
medium, Miss Cook (some of them in his own house), 
makes the following classification of Spiritistic mani- 
festations : 

"The movement of heavy bodies without mechanical 
exertion [telekinesis] ; the phenomena of percussive 
[rapping] and allied sounds; the raising of tables, 
chairs, human beings and of various substances without 
contact with persons or machinery [levitation] ; lumi- 
nous appearances; direct writing; phantom forms [ma- 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 77 

terialization] ; the evidence of the exercise of an ex- 
terior intelligence, indubitable incarnation of spirits." 

Lehre und Wehre said in March, 1900 : ' ' The theory 
of deception is not a sufficient explanation. Even aside 
from the fact that such men of science as referred to 
above would immediately have discovered the deception 
and exposed the medium, it must not be forgotten that 
the tricks of sleight of hand are produced under 
conditions entirely different from those under which 
Spiritistic phenomena are observed! Even if certain 
popular magicians have declared that they are able 
to reproduce all Spiritistic phenomena, it should be 
observed that the same phenomena may be the resultant 
of very different causes. It might be better to say 
that they are able to imitate Spiritistic phenomena 
under other conditions." 

Why, indeed, should one attempt to deny, a priori, 
the reality of at least some psychic phenomena? There 
has never been an age in which these manifestations 
did not occur. In his little tract on Spiritualism, Rev. 
Biederwolf reminds us of the test put by King Croesus 
to the oracle at Delphi. The medium on that occasion 
told the messengers what their master was then doing 
many miles away. At the shrine of Isis clairvoyants 
dictated prescriptions just as they do to-day. Tacitus 
records a spirit materialization in his narrative of Ves- 
pasian's reign. Marcellinus, another historian, refers 
to the arrest of two Spiritists, in the reign of Valens, 
who tried to discover the successor to Yalens by means 
of a table which tipped and tilted, and by a contriv- 
ance which spelled out words just like the modern 
ouija-board. Virgil describes a magician: 

"Her charms can call what soul she please, 
Eob other hearts of healthful ease, 
Turn rivers backward to their source, 
And make the stars forget their course." 



78 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

Tertullian speaks of circles formed of joined hands 
which could call up the spirits of the dead, and make 
tables prophesy. Many centuries ago the Buddhists 
commenced to levitate tables and other articles of furni- 
ture. Spiritual writing in the sand, and flying tables, 
were a common affair among the Chinese and Hindoos. 
Hand-books existed in the early Christian era, which 
gave minute directions how to cite the spirits. Some 
forms of Spiritism were very common in the Middle 
Ages, especially among Jewish sorcerers, whose specialty 
was telekinesis (e. g., moving tables). The most incom- 
prehensible ' ' stunts ' ' — levitations, dematerializations, 
materializations, etc. — are performed at the present day 
by many Hindoo fakirs. 

Paganism in all lands and in all ages has had its 
necromancers, sorcerers, medicine-men, shamans, who, 
one and all, even to the present day, claim to possess 
the ability to maintain commerce with the dead, and 
who, when under spirit control, pass into trance states 
which are not in any way distinguishable from the 
mediumistic trance. Their activity, too, in great part, 
rests on deception — whether conscious or not is not 
always easy to decide. But they, like certain Spiritistic 
mediums, are at times able to produce manifestations 
of a force which defies classification on simply natural 
grounds. Every record of modern exploration adds 
testimony in support of this general rule. When 
Vilhjalmur Stefansson discovered the blond Eskimo on 
the northern coast of Canada, he attended a seance 
which in every detail resembled the " tests" given in 
the parlors of Spiritists in New York or London. Dr. 
G. H. von Schubert, in his History of the Soul (II., 
p. 51), quotes examples from shamanism which demon- 
strated the reality of clairvoyance among the savages 
of northern Russia. All these pagan sorcerers, or 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 79 

shamans, employ their arts in response to the requests 
of believers in the potency of spirit communion, in 
order to disclose hidden (stolen) objects, or to heal 
diseases, or to determine the lucky days for some under- 
taking, etc. They, one and all, are susceptible of trance 
conditions, from which they awake, like Occidental 
mediums, in a state of great exhaustion. Their activ- 
ities are generally conducted in the artificial darkness 
of a hut or tent or cave (witch of Endor), and they 
produce uncanny noises, and throw around heavy 
objects, while tied with cords, just like the mediums 
in the Spiritistic seance. 

We conclude that if ninety-nine per cent, of all 
Spiritistic phenomena are based on fraud or on auto- 
suggestion and self-deception, there is a residual one 
per cent, of undoubtedly genuine phenomena which can 
not be explained on scientific grounds, and concerning 
which we are simply forced to accept one of two ex- 
planations : Either these phenomena are what the Spirit- 
ists claim them to be, caused by the spirits of the de- 
parted ; or they are intrusions of the demon world upon 
our own, are caused by what the Bible calls evil spirits, 
are demoniacal in origin, are Satanic. 

May we assume that the souls of the dead enter 
into communication with the world of the living? On 
the basis of Scripture teaching this must be rejected. 
The souls of the departed are either in Paradise or in 
the abode of the damned. When the rich man asked 
Abraham to send some one to his brethren from the 
dead it was denied him. Abraham is ignorant of us, 
and Jacob knows us not. (Isa. 63:16.) The dead 
have no more a portion forever in anything that is 
done under the sun. (Eccl. 9:6.) David said regard- 
ing his dead child : ' ' I shall go to him, but he shall not 
return to me" (2 Sam. 12:23). "He that goes down 



80 MIASMAS PROM THE PIT. 

to the grave shall return no more to his house" (Job 
7:10). "His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it 
not" (Job 14:21). On the basis of these Scripture 
passages, orthodox Christianity has everywhere main- 
tained that there can be no communion of the dead 
with the living. This, as we shall see, is also the teach- 
ing of Martin Luther and of the Lutheran Confessions. 
However, two incidents recorded in Scripture are 
sometimes cited as a case of communication with the 
departed. There is the apparition of Samuel in the 
witch's cave at Endor. Spiritists are wont to cite this 
incident with much satisfaction. Most unjustifiably, 
however; for, if this was the spirit of Samuel, then he 
did not come in response to the medium's call, for she 
is struck aghast when she sees the figure. Further- 
more, the sequel shows that God decidedly disapproved 
of the whole transaction and allowed the commission of 
one sin to be the punishment of others previously com- 
mitted. Hence we read that shortly afterwards Saul 
and Israel were delivered into the hands of the Philis- 
tines and that he died as a suicide "for his transgres- 
sion . . . and also for asking counsel of one that had a 
familiar spirit, to inquire of it, and inquired not of the 
Lord" (1 Chron. 10:13, 14). The sorceress is called 
' ' mistress of an Ob, " of a " familiar spirit ' ' ; hence 
there was some evil spirit active in the business. In 
all this there is little encouragement for the Spiritist. 
Indeed, as Eev. Biederwolf says, with greater force 
than elegance: "If this view is correct, it is the only 
case on record where God so acted, and if He did so 
act in this case it was for a specific divine purpose, 
and gives no warrant for believing that He is running 
a perpetual bureau for this sort of business and that 
any old hag can secure His services to call up the 
dead on any occasion or for any purpose whatsoever." 



MIASMAS PROM THE PIT. 81 

But he adds: "I am not at all sure, however, that this 
explanation is the right one." Undoubtedly, the inter- 
pretation which best accords with the Scripture texts 
quoted above is that of Dr. Martin Luther, who says: 
"The sorceress calls forth from the grave a specter 
similar to the prophet Samuel both in stature and 
dress, by a deception and trick of the devil. Even so 
Paul (2 Thess. 2:10) calls the miracles which Satan 
performs 'lying powers and deception.' While Samuel 
was resting in the Lord, a Satanic apparition was 
sent to Saul as a punishment because he had despised 
and rejected the teachings of Samuel in his life." 
(St. L. Ed., III., 793.) 

As for the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the 
Mount of Transfiguration, it has been pertinently 
pointed out that it was not the souls, but the persons, 
of these men that appeared. The case is not in point. 
Elijah went to heaven in a chariot of fire, and the 
mystery which shrouds the disposition of the body of 
Moses has been rightly interpreted by John Gerhard 
to mean that the body was not held by its tomb, but 
restored to its soul in the home of the blest. So strong 
are the texts in Scripture which teach that there can 
be no commerce of the souls of the dead with the liv- 
ing, that the two incidents referred to must certainly 
be interpreted in harmony with these clear teachings. 

At this point it is important to note that many, 
even of those who frankly confess the presence of a 
supernatural element in Spiritistic phenomena, have 
not committed themselves to the view that the spirits 
of the dead are the agents concerned. Many of them 
are cautious enough to refer to these agencies simply 
as "unembodied intelligences" — intelligent beings with- 
out a body. 



82 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

And this permits us to advance another step in our 
investigation. While refusing to accept the Spiritistic 
theory, many close students of these phenomena assert 
not only their genuineness, but definitely assert that 
they are caused and directed by thinking beings, by 
"intelligences." They point out that there is intelli- 
gent control even in the most violent manifestations 
which occur at Spiritistic sittings. We quote the fol- 
lowing from J. Godfrey Raupert (Modern Spiritism), 
who, though not a Spiritist, speaks from personal 
knowledge gained at hundreds of seances: "Heavy 
objects and pieces of furniture, which the combined 
strength of several persons can not move beyond one 
or two inches, may be shifted or 'floated' with the 
greatest ease, grand pianos and ponderous dining-room 
sideboards may be made to change places, chairs with 
persons seated on them may be raised to the ceiling 
and lowered again to the ground. And this may take 
place without any kind of physical and personal con- 
tact of the sensitive [=medium] with these objects, 
without any wish or suggestion on his part, and not 
infrequently to the very great alarm and discomfiture 
of the persons present. But there is clear evidence of 
independent intelligence operating in connection with 
the phenomenon, since there is an exhibition of com- 
plete and intelligent 'control' of the force employed, 
little or no damage ever being done to the objects thus 
manipulated or to the living agents witnessing or 
eliciting it." (P. 35.) 

We have already referred to "direct writing" 
(executed without ouija-board). Writing, sometimes 
occupying a whole sheet of note-paper, and containing 
well-formed and intelligent sentences, is frequently 
executed in a few seconds of time on sheets of paper 
placed in the center of the table, the sitters being 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 83 

more than a foot distant. "The writing is sometimes 
done on the inside or the bottom sheet of a packet of 
note-paper made up of, perhaps, six or seven sheets." 
(Raupert, p. 45.) The occult forces "will display a 
sharpness and intelligence and ingenuity which often 
leave the student in a perfect maze of perplexity and 
bewilderment." "All experienced occultists agree 
that subconscious mind action does not cover the whole 
ground, and that occasionally, at least, knowledge is 
conveyed and information given which could not by 
any possible stretch of the imagination have been 
normally acquired or been absorbed by either the 
conscious or subconscious mind of the sensitive 
[=medium]." (Raupert, p. 59.) 

That these "intelligences" are not the spirits of the 
departed we know on Scriptural grounds. But there 
is also confirmation of our position in the very phe- 
nomena which we are now considering. Innumerable 
instances are on record which prove that the "intel- 
ligences" introduce themselves as celebrities which once 
lived on earth. However, on closer questioning they 
show themselves quite ignorant of those whom they 
personate. We meet with Carlyles and Newmans who 
can not mention a single book which they have written, 
Shakespeares who are driveling imbeciles, Bacons who 
are sponsors of nonsensical twaddle. And when they 
personate the more recently deceased, they invariably 
make slight errors which the deceased, were they 
actually speaking, would never have made. Compar- 
ing the "revelations" of the various spirits, it is also 
found that they make many contradictory statements 
regarding the condition of the departed souls. Finally, 
there is the low moral tone which often pervades these 
messages, and the terrible effect (physical and mental) 
of communion with the "intelligences." 



84 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

These intelligences "accommodate themselves to the 
religious and moral views entertained by the company 
in which they find themselves." They will first con- 
vey the most exalted teachings about human duty and 
a pious life, but in a number of cases carefully inves- 
tigated by Mr. Raupert, after habitually introducing 
itself by prayerful aspirations of the most elevating 
kind, the spirit "was in the end discovered to be a 
masquerading intelligence and, on its own confession, 
keenly intent on working the moral and physical ruin 
of its victims. The ingenuity displayed in attaining 
this end, the tricks and subtleties resorted to in order 
to escape detection and to continue 'in possession,' 
were in one or two instances of a kind passing all 
human comprehension and imagination, and the wonder 
is that anything like an escape from such toils is ever 
effected at all. In some instances this is only accom- 
plished after the physical constitution of the victim 
has been completely ruined; in others the termination 
of the experiment is reached in the asylum or in some 
institution for the cure of nervous disease." (Pp. 159, 
160.) 

Prof. L. P. Jacks, of Oxford, president of the 
British Psychical Research Society in 1917, and per- 
sonally a high authority on the subject, made this 
statement in his presidential address: "Take the ques- 
tion of imposture. Mediums are not the only impos- 
tors. How about the communicators [the spirits] ? 
Are they masquerading? You can have no absolute 
proof that there is no imposture on the other side." 

Experienced Spiritists tell us that "even where the 
most convincing proofs have been given, we must be 
cautious." "I gained the distinct impression," writes 
Dr. Herewald Carrington, a purely scientific inves- 
tigator, "that instead of the spirits of the personages 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 85 

who claimed to be present, I was dealing with an 
exceedingly sly, cunning, tricky and deceitful intelli- 
gence which threw out chance remarks, fishing guesses, 
and shrewd inferences, leaving the sitter to pick them 
up and elaborate them if he would. If anything could 
make me believe in the doctrine of evil and lying 
spirits, it would be the sittings of Mrs. Piper/' 

Mr. Eaupert says: "I had a striking experience 
of spirit-impersonation many years ago. A spirit, 
claiming to be a departed personal friend of mine and 
intimately acquainted with that individual's life his- 
tory, was, after many months, discovered in a false- 
hood and then freely and boastingly admitted that he 
had managed to trick us so successfully by drawing 
the information required from our own subconscious 
memories. Indeed, the evidence available to-day fully 
demonstrates the fact that the main sources of informa- 
tion of these spirits are the subconscious minds of the 
living, although it can not be claimed that these are 
their only sources of information. They have probably 
access to knowledge by methods wholly unknown to us 
and quite beyond our power of imagination." 

"Their consciences are as callous as if seared with 
a hot iron, sin has to them lost its wickedness, and they 
are willing dupes to unseen beings who delight to 
control their every faculty. Very seldom has a full- 
fledged Spiritualist been able to comprehend the neces- 
sity and blessedness of the religion of Jesus Christ, and 
to withdraw from the morbid conditions into which he 
has fallen. . . . For about three months I was in the 
power of spirits. Their blasphemy and uncleanness 
shocked me. But they were my constant companions. 
I could not get rid of them. They tempted me to 
suicide and murder, and to other sins." (Henry M. 
Hugunnin, Spirit Possession.) 



86 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

Sir Arthur Doyle admits that we have to deal some- 
times "with absolutely cold-blooded lying on the part 
of wicked or mischievous intelligences/' uttering their 
thoughts through the mediums. We must not, there- 
fore, he says, believe every spirit, but "try the spirits " 
whether they are of God. But the text goes on to say 
(1 John 4:1): "Because many false prophets are gone 
out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: 
every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in 
the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not 
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God ; 
and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have 
heard that it should come; and even now already is it 
in the world." (One may doubt very much whether 
Conan Doyle would have quoted this text had he taken 
the trouble to look it up in the New Testament.) 

Mr. Stainton-Moses, the famous medium, writes in 
Spirit Identity: "Some spirits will assent to leading 
questions, and, possessed apparently with a desire to 
please, or unconscious of the import of what they say. 
or- without moral consciousness, will say anything. 
Such motiveless lying bespeaks a deeply evil nature. 
. . . Such an impostor, acting with an air of sincerity, 
must be as Satan clothed in light." 

Another Spiritistic writer makes the following con- 
fession: "For seven years I held daily intercourse with 
what purported to be my mother's spirit. I am now 
firmly persuaded that it was nothing but an evil spirit, 
an infernal demon, who gained my soul's confidence 
and led me to the very brink of ruin." (Facts and 
Fallacies of Spiritualism, Rev. G. S. Seaman, p. 6.) 

If, then, the phenomena here so frequently referred 
to are genuine — and of this we need not, either on 
evidential or on Scriptural grounds, entertain any 
doubts — they are undoubtedly produced through the 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 87 

agency of demons. This is the doctrine of Luther and 
of the Lutheran Church: Wherever there is a super- 
natural response to devices for contact with the unseen 
world, it is not the dead, but the demons, that respond. 

Commenting on the words of our Savior, "Behold 
my hands and my feet. ... A spirit hath not flesh and 
bones as ye see me have," Luther says in an Easter 
sermon: "The Lord Himself does not deny that spirits 
permit themselves to be seen. He affirms it by point- 
ing out the difference between the spirits and Himself. 
... It is well and necessary to know that the devil 
is at all times about us, and sometimes disguises him- 
self, as I have seen myself. . . . We must know this, 
lest we regard such spirits as the souls of the de- 
parted," etc. And in a sermon on the first Sunday 
after Trinity: "Since the world stands, no soul has 
ever appeared, nor does God want any to appear, for 
you see in this gospel lesson that Abraham denies the 
rich man's petition that the dead teach the living. . . . 
Hence it is simply a demoniacal apparition when some 
spirits permit themselves to be conjured." (E. A. 
13, p. 16ff.) In the Smalcald Articles (II., 2, 16) 
Luther explains the apparitions of the dead as 
"Bneberei der ooesen Geister" — "the mocking malice 
of demons " : " The demons have exercised their mock- 
ing malice by appearing like the spirits of the dead," 
etc. 

The difference between the "mockery of demons," 
referred to by Luther, and the phenomena of Spiritism, 
is not as great as might be inferred. Luther refers 
to genuine apparitions, which he accounts for as per- 
sonations of the devil. In modern Spiritism, as in 
shamanism the world over, there is a voluntary con- 
verse with demons, established through a trance state, 
and sometimes in normal waking condition, but always 



88 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

through a passivity of the mind which one authority 
calls the "keynote of all Spiritistic experiment. ' ' A 
state is superinduced in which the unseen agents may 
invade the soul, and even employ the hand and voice. 
This is simply sorcery. 

Blackstone says in his commentaries: "To deny 
the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery is at 
once flatly to contradict the revealed Word of God in 
various passages of both Old and New Testament; and 
the system of those persons who through the agency 
of wicked spirits perform acts beyond the ordinary 
powers of man is a truth to which every nation in the 
world hath in its turn borne testimony, whether by 
well-attested examples, or prohibitory laws which at 
least suppose the possibility of commerce with evil 
spirits. ' ' 

The Bible asserts the reality of sorcery. The 
heathen by whom Israel was surrounded had their 
necromancers. It must be inferred, too, from the 
Scriptural references to pagan sorcery, that these 
shamans of the Canaanites claimed to enter into com- 
munion with the dead. The principal passages which 
bear on this subject are: Lev. 19:31: "Regard not 
them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after 
wizards to be defiled by them; I am the Lord your 
God." Deut. 18:10-12: "There shall not be found 
among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter 
to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or 
an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a 
charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a 
wizard, or a necromancer; for all that do these things 
are an abomination unto the Lord. ' ' Lev. 20 : 6 : " And 
the soul that turneth after such as have familiar 
spirits, and after wizards to go awhoring after them, 
I will even set my face against that soul, and will 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 89 

cut him off from among his people. ' ' Isa. 8:19: " And 
when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that 
have familiar spirits and unto wizards, that peep and 
that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? 
for the living to the dead?" The power of sorcerers 
to enter into communion with "spirits" is in these 
passages plainly taught. But it is not asserted, or even 
implied, that the "spirits" are those of the dead. Un- 
doubtedly these "familiar spirits" of the Old Testa- 
ment are the "demons" of the New. Dr. Stoeckhardt 
says in his Commentary on Ephesians: "The demons 
are spirits, uncorporeal beings endowed with conscious- 
ness, intellect and will, but evil spirits, whose entire 
thinking and purpose is directed to wicked ends." 
This is the consonant teaching of orthodox Christianity. 
The demons are devils. We are surrounded by spirits 
"who hate righteousness and hate God with a fiercer 
hatred than ever burnt in the hearts of the most 
profligate and blasphemous of our race," who "are 
endeavoring to accomplish our moral ruin, in this 
life and in the life to come." (R. W. Dale, on Eph. 
6:11.) They sometimes fill the mind of the Christian 
with evil thoughts which he abhors and which he 
tries to repel, and pursue him with doubts about the 
existence of God and the reality of his redemption. 
The world, however, the ungodly, are in quite another 
sense subject to demoniacal influence. "The whole 
world lieth in the evil one " (1 John 5:19) refers to 
this sinister influence. The soul and its functions, 
man's consciousness and intellect, are open to invasions 
of the powers of evil. And while this holds good of 
every unconverted one, the control exercised by evil 
spirits over the soul of man is not only heightened in 
degree, but assumes a new and more sinister form when 
the will of man "meets the spirits half-way" in that 



90 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

state of passivity which, all observers agree, is the 
necessary condition of a successful Spiritistic seance. 

Dr. Quackenbos, of Columbia University, called 
Spiritism "a modern phase of the prohibited sin in- 
volved in attempted communication with demons. 
When the manifestations are so awfully real, so evi- 
dently the work of mysterious, unseen intelligences 
that those viewing them, overcome by horror, fall into 
hysterical convulsions, surely no objective psychic 
force exercised continuously or automatically by those 
present can be looked to in explanation. "We naturally 
turn for a solution of the problem to the unseen world, 
which our Bible represents as palpitating with spirit 
life." Dr. Augustus H. Strong, in the fifth edition 
of his Systematic Theology, says (p. 329) that in 
Spiritualism "there are facts inexplicable upon merely 
natural principles of disease and delusion." Dr. 
Strong quotes, in this connection, 2 Thess. 2:9 ("the 
working of Satan with all power and signs and lying 
wonders"), and remarks that the Scriptures here and 
elsewhere recognize the existence of surprising events 
brought about by evil spirits. After careful examina- 
tion of the subject, Professor Pember says: "Since 
all such proceedings as these [manifestations of Spirit- 
ism] are a transgression of the limits of humanity as 
laid down by the Creator, it follows that all super- 
natural beings who sanction them and hold intercourse 
with the transgressor must be spirits of evil." Franz 
Splittgerber says, in his Tod, Fortleben, und Auferste- 
hung (fourth edition, p. 209) : "Not all phenomena of 
Spiritism are to be explained as so much deception. 
Many bear an undeniably supernatural character, 
which, however, must not be referred to the spirits of 
the departed, but to the obsession of demons, and as 
such belong to the lying wonders of the latter days 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 91 

expressly foretold in Scripture (Matt. 24:24)." Prof. 
Theo. Engelder sums up the matter thus: "Spiritism 
has assumed the habiliments of ancient sorcery. When 
pianos suddenly rise in air or commence to play with- 
out contact, when books are brought through locked 
doors into the room, and human beings float out at one 
window and in at the other, there is a supernatural 
agency at work. These things have happened in hun- 
dreds of places and in the presence of thousands of 
witnesses whose word and testimony would not be 
impeached in any criminal court. The spirit which 
through the mediums conveys information based upon 
superhuman knowledge; foretells future events; reveals 
that which is hidden in the human heart and soul; 
imitates the handwriting of persons long dead, and 
confers supernatural knowledge — is the same infernal 
spirit which made the demoniacs clairvoyant in the 
days of Christ and prophesied through the woman of 
Endor." (Doctrinal paper read before Michigan 
District of the Missouri Synod in 1901.) 

Of course, the wise and cultured world ridicules 
the very notion of a personal devil and of demons. 
Intellectual America runs after thousands of fake 
mediums, spending millions of dollars annually in 
order to be informed that grandpa, since he is in the 
spirit world, finds his hearing powerfully improved, 
and that our late lamented Cousin Timpkins would 
like to see his brother John wear the white vest with 
the herring-bone pattern which is hanging in the closet 
under the front stairs. Cultured Americans are 
mulcted out of their fortunes through combinations of 
fake mediums with promoters of mythical oil wells and 
gold mines. But cultured America does not believe 
in the devil. Christians, be they cultured or uncul- 
tured, believe that there is a devil, that there are evil 



92 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

spirits, that there are necromancers and sorcerers, and 
that the Scriptural prohibitions of employing the black 
art are in full force to-day. Nor can the present 
relevancy of the texts which we have quoted be 
denied, when the forces which produce the manifesta- 
tions of the Spiritistic seance are recognized in their 
true character; that is, as instances of demoniacal 
working through human agents. 

If these are not like the phenomena which Scrip- 
ture refers to when it speaks of the employment of 
familiar spirits, then we have no meaning to connect 
with these many and clear passages. Indeed, we have 
the example of a Spiritistic medium recorded in the 
Book of Acts (chap. 16: 16-18) : "And it came to pass, 
as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with 
a spirit of divination met us, which brought her mas- 
ters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed 
Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the 
servants of the most high God, which show unto us 
the way of salvation. And this did she many days. 
But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, 
I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come 
out of her ! And he came out the same hour. ' ' There 
can be no question that this young woman was a 
Spiritistic medium, and certainly the spirit which 
spoke through her was an evil spirit, a demon. The 
conduct of the woman, so like that of modern mediums, 
who advise the reading of the Bible and prayer, did 
not deceive the apostle. 

Prof. Adolf Zoeckler wrote: "After following 
closely the development of thought in the field of 
Spiritism, I am more than ever convinced of the cor- 
rectness of demoniacal explanation. The story of 
possession in the New Testament receives most instruc- 
tive comment from the facts of Spiritism." Elsewhere 



MIASMAS PROM THE PIT. 93 

he says: "Fortune-telling spirits, of the loquacious, 
noisy sort reported in Acts 16 : 16ff., commonly speak 
through mediums. There are many cases of evil or 
unclean spirits, such as maltreated the seven sons of 
Sceva (Acts 19). And there are frequent cases of a 
multiplicity of spirits, of veritable hordes of demons ; 
taking possession of the medium (Luke 8:30ff.)." 
Undoubtedly, the physical condition of mediums in the 
trance state is something exceedingly terrifying, and 
cases are on record which entirely resemble the descrip- 
tion which we have of certain possessed persons re- 
corded in the Gospels. 

That the spirits are able to make the human tongue 
a vehicle of expression is evident from many passages 
in Holy Writ. (Matt. 8:29-31; Luke 4:34-41; Mark 
1 : 26 ; Acts 19 : 15 ; Luke 8 : 2. Compare 8 : 30.) It is 
a notable fact that in many of these cases the spirits 
speaking through the obsessed knew more than their 
contemporaries about the person and work of Christ. 
Compare also these texts: "Mary called Magdalene, 
out of whom went seven devils" (Luke 8:2). "And 
Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he 
said, Legion; because many devils were entered into 
him" (Luke 8:30). Here is evidence that more than 
one demon may take possession of the human body. 
Mediums admit that at times several spirits control 
them, and hence the incoherency of the messages. Both 
of Mrs. Piper's hands have written different messages 
at the same time, while another "control" was using 
her voice ! 

Mr. Raupert quotes a correspondent who once was 
a member of the cult, as follows: "The spirit will 
impel them [the mediums] to speak things they would 
not, do things they should not, and confuse their brain, 
so that they are actually incapable of knowing, if 



94 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

conscious of spirit control, whether it is their own ego y 
or the spirit's, which acts." Dr. von Schubert, in his 
Oeschichte der Seele, records the case of a psycholog- 
ically diseased woman who, after recovery, related that 
contrary to her intention she was forced to speak words 
of insanity which a foreign spirit who made his abode 
in her forced her to utter. She understood all that 
her brother said to the physician and knew how they 
deplored her condition, yet was unable to indicate in 
any way her inward better sentiments. The difference 
between persons so afflicted and the Spiritistic medium 
is simply this, that the medium holds herself a will- 
ing instrument to the influences of the spirit which 
controls her. 

But the relation of mediumship to demoniacal pos- 
session is still closer than appears from the above. 
"A fully developed sensitive may, after a time, exhibit 
symptoms strongly indicative of what is known as pos- 
session or obsession, or, at any rate, of permanent 
abnormal will-control of some kind, and his condition 
may ultimately become a truly miserable and pitiable 
one; in many instances terminating in complete mental 
and physical collapse, and not infrequently in the 
asylum." (Raupert, pp. 77, 78.) As far back as 
1877, Dr. L. S. Forbes Winslow wrote in Spiritualistic 
Madness: f 'The mediums often manifest signs of an 
abnormal condition of their mental faculties, and 
among certain of them are found unequivocal indica- 
tions of a true demoniacal possession." Mr. Dal 
Owen, himself an ardent Spiritist, was constrained to 
write years ago: "There are more reasons than many 
imagine for the opinion entertained by some able men, 
Protestants as well as Catholics, that the communica- 
tions in question come from the powers of darkness 
and that we are entering on the first steps of a career 



MIASMAS PROM THE PIT. 95 

of demoniac manifestation, the issues whereof men can 
not conjecture. ' ' 

A more recent experimenter, Dr. Van Eeden, a 
Dutch physician intimately acquainted with the sub- 
ject, wrote the following: "In this region lie risks of 
error, not merely scientific and intellectual, but also of 
moral error. . . . And it is this which seems, indeed, to 
justify the orthodox religions in condemning the evoca- 
tion of spirits as immoral, as infringing on secrets 
hidden from man by the Eternal." 

Respecting the physical effects of the practice of 
mediumship Sir Wm. Crookes writes: "After witness- 
ing the painful state of nervous and bodily prostration 
in which some of these experiments have left Mr. 
Home — after seeing him lying in almost fainting con- 
dition on the floor, pale and speechless — I could 
scarcely doubt that the evolution of psychic force is 
accompanied by a corresponding drain on vital force." 
Mr. Stainton-Moses, claimed by the Spiritists all over 
the world as the highest authority on the subject, wrote 
of himself as follows: "The hand tingled and the arm 
throbbed and I was conscious of waves of force surging 
through me. When the message was done I was 
prostrate with exhaustion and suffered from a violent 
headache at the base of the brain." Dr. Von Schrenck- 
Nortzing a scientific experimenter of recent date, tells 
us that "as a rule it took the medium two days to 
recover from the nervous prostration resulting from 
these sittings." And Sir Wm. Barrett assures us 
repeatedly that he has observed "the steady down- 
ward course of all mediums who sit regularly." Mr. 
Raupert, who quotes these expressions, adds this per- 
sonal testimony: "I need not say that my long and 
many-sided acquaintance with the subject, and the 
reports I am constantly receiving from shipwrecked 



96 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

experimenters, confirm the literal truth of these state- 
ments." Elsewhere the same investigator writes: 

"Most sensitives [mediums] suffer from brain ex- 
haustion, and sometimes from a severe and irritating 
pain at the top of the spine, after a prolonged and 
successful experiment, and almost all professional sen- 
sitives undergo, in the course of time, a gradual but 
very perceptible diminution of mental and physical 
vigor. Many of them suffer from chronic prostration 
and nerve debility." This remarkably agrees with the 
description which we have in Mark 9 : 18 of the 
demoniac, who, at the end of each seizure, would "pine 
away"; that is, wither up, lie exhausted. 

Dr. B. P. Randolph, author of a work, Dealings 
with the Dead, was eight years a medium. He gives 
his opinion of it in the following scathing words: "I 
enter the arena as the champion of common sense, 
against what in my soul I believe to be the most tre- 
mendous enemy of God, morals and religion that ever 
found foothold on the earth; the most seductive, hence 
the most dangerous, form of sensualism that ever 
cursed a nation, age or people. I was a medium about 
eight years, during which time I made three thousand 
speeches, and traveled over several different countries, 
proclaiming its new gospel. I now regret that so 
much excellent breath was wasted, and that my health 
of mind and body was well-nigh ruined. I have only 
begun to regain both since I totally abandoned it, and 
to-day had rather see the cholera in my house than be 
a Spiritualistic medium. 

"As a trance speaker I became widely known, and 
now aver that during the entire eight years of my 
mediumship I firmly and sacredly confess that I had 
not the control of my own mind, as I now have, one- 
twentieth of the time ; and before man and high heaven 



MIASMAS PROM THE PIT. 97 

I most solemnly declare that I do not now believe 
that during the whole eight years I was sane for thirty- 
six consecutive hours, in consequence of the trance and 
the susceptibility thereto. 

"For seven years I held daily intercourse with 
what purported to be my mother's spirit. I am now 
fully persuaded that it was nothing but an evil spirit; 
an infernal demon who, in that guise, gained my soul's 
confidence and led me to the very brink of ruin. We 
read in Scripture of demoniac possession, as well as 
abnormal spiritual action. Both facts exist, provable 
to-day; I am positive the former does. A. J. Davis 
and his clique of Harmonialists say there are no evil 
spirits. I emphatically deny the statement. Five of 
my friends destroyed themselves, and I attempted it, 
by direct spiritual influences. Every crime in the 
calendar has been committed by mortal movers of 
viewless beings. Adultery, fornications, suicides, deser- 
tions, unjust divorces, prostitution, abortion, insanity, 
are not evils, I suppose. I charge all these to this 
scientific Spiritualism. It has also broken up families, 
squandered fortunes, tempted and destroyed the weak. 
It has banished peace from happy families, separated 
husbands and wives, and shattered the intellect of 
thousands." (Religious Delusions, Coombs, p. 151f.) 

Professor Quackenbos says: "The effect of seance 
procedures, when persisted in, is physical and mental 
ruin. Would good angels work such results, or could 
our dead friends desire them? Monomania or hopeless 
insanity completes the purpose of Satan: he has 
wrecked a human mind; he has rendered useless a 
bright life; laid away in a napkin the talent of gold, if 
he has not a claim on the soul for all eternity. This is 
the most unvarying result of giving up life to seance 
work. Dr. Edmunds reports that, of a comparatively 



98 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

small number of mediums of his acquaintance, 'one had 
well-marked mental disturbance; another had been the 
inmate of a lunatic asylum; a third was seized with a 
mysterious form of paralysis, ' etc. ; and his experience 
is that of all observers. Asylum superintendents bear 
witness that Spiritism induces morbid psychical states, 
tends to develop insane delusions, and is a most fruit- 
ful maniac-making religion. Indeed, those who have 
seen mediums rolling on the floor, giving utterance to 
heart-rending screams, and disfiguring their bodies 
after the manner of lunatics, may well believe it. To 
quote the Rev. H. L. Hastings: 'As the temporary 
mania of alcoholic intoxication finally ends in the 
settled madness that fills our insane hospitals with the 
hopeless wrecks of drink-ruined minds; so these evil 
demons, after deceiving and beguiling the unwary until 
they yield themselves soul and body to their control, 
grasp the deepest centers of mental, nervous and vital 
action, disturb the physical forces, disorder the nervous 
system, subvert the will, and unbalance the judgment, 
until the temporary frenzy of spirit control settles into 
the permanent madness of demoniacal possession, which 
wrecks the mental and moral constitution, and leaves 
the madhouse or the suicide's grave to conceal the 
finished work of evil spirits from the gaze of the out- 
side world.' " (Lehre und Wehre, 1900, p. 149.) 

Dr. Forbes Winslow, Oxford lecturer on mental 
diseases, of Charing Cross Hospital, said the prevalence 
of madness owing to Spiritualism was on the increase. 
The late Reader Harris, K.C., wrote: "The most re- 
markable case of mediumship I have met with was 
that of a lady who commenced with a little seemingly 
innocent table-turning at a children's party, and 
finished up by death in a madhouse." {Fundamentals, 
X., p. 123.) "Ten thousand people," wrote Dr. Forbes 



MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 99 

Winslow, as far back as 1877, "are at the present time 
confined in lunatic asylums on account of having tam- 
pered with the supernatural. ' ' 

The more closely we inspect this awful subject, the 
more sinister does it appear, the more clearly do these 
unseen "intelligences" stand revealed as miasmas from 
the pit. The following well-known passage from Spir- 
itistic literature is very significant: "They come, the 
door once open, in crowds, in riotous invasion. They 
run, they leap, they fly, they gesticulate, they sing, 
they whoop, and they curse . . . Mind, body, soul, 
memory and imagination — nay, the very heart — are 
polluted by the ghostly canaille." 

On the 8th of December, 1861, Miss Lizzie Doten, 
one of the most popular spirit mediums in America, 
at a meeting in Lyceum Hall, Boston, offered the fol- 
lowing Spiritualistic prayer to Satan: "0 Lucifer, 
thou Son of the Morning, who fell from the high estate, 
and whom mortals are prone to call the embodiment of 
evil, we lift our voices unto thee. We know thou canst 
not harm us unless by the will of the Almighty, of 
whom thou art a part and portion, and in whose 
economy thou playest a part, and we can not presume 
to sit in judgment over Deity. From the depths of 
thine infamy stream forth divine truths. Why should 
we turn from thee? Does not the same inspiration rule 
us all? Is one in God's sight better than another?" 
Prof. W. Chaney, in San Jose, Calif., prayed: "0 
Devil, Prince of the Christian's Hell, hear my prayer." 
(Coombs, Religious Delusions, p. 132f.) 

Spiritism, counter to the divinely established order, 
ventures into a territory from which God has by rigid 
commands excluded the searching spirit of man. In a 
manner specifically forbidden by God, and through 
prohibited means, this system endeavors to break down 



100 MIASMAS FROM THE PIT. 

the limits of the material and the unseen world. It 
would constrain the evil spirits to give information 
regarding the beyond, and in other ways serve the 
devotees of the system. Let us note that there is not 
a single text in Scripture which condemns sorceries as 
fraud, deception or imagination. Scripture takes for 
granted that sorcery is a fact, and, where pagan sys- 
tems of religion rule, a very common fact. Undoubt- 
edly it is due to the general apostasy of the modern 
church from the fundamentals of Christianity that 
voluntary Satanic possession — the fully developed 
mediumistic trance, when genuine, is simply that — has 
become so common in our days. 



CHAPTER SEVEN. 

Some Questions Answered. 

1. Is Not the Triviality of the Communications 
an Argument against Their Diabolical Origin? 

Answer, No. Judging offhand, it might seem 
strange that the evil spirits can do nothing better 
than treat their audience to small talk such as would 
prove a living person an intolerable bore, if not an 
imbecile. But is not this a proof that God holds in 
check the powers which evil spirits might otherwise 
exert? Is it not a notable fact that not one single new 
invention, not one discovery, stands to the credit of the 
seance? We are reminded of Luther's remark that the 
devil, who would so delight in destroying human lives, 
is under such control that he can only frighten men 
with uncanny racket. In our days he raps tables, 
strums a guitar, rips up curtains and pieces of cloth, 
and pushes pianos around — rather degrading occupa- 
tions for spirits that once rebelled against God! The 
trivialities communicated are furthermore just what we 
should expect from a spirit who always disappoints 
the ungodly who serve him in a life of sin, promising 
them riches, pleasure and fame, and very often giving 
them only poverty, pain, disgrace, and sometimes a sui- 
cide's grave. 

2. Does Not the Frequent Detection of Mediums 
in Intentional Deception Argue against the Cor- 
rectness of Our View? 

101 



102 SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

One might put the question thus: If the evil spirits 
are in control,, then what is the necessity of employing 
fraud and deception? The charge of fraudulent prac- 
tises is generally admitted by Spiritists. The presiding 
officer of the convention held by the Spiritists in 1897, 
in Washington, D. C, painted a vigorous picture of 
various frauds practised by mediums, which frauds, he 
said, were so loathsome that he could not name them in 
words. However, on due thought it will appear that 
the element of fraud is just what one should expect 
in mediumistic work. We leave out of consideration, 
of course, such plain humbugs as the great Rudinor, 
Madame Mizpah with the Seven Veils, and their com- 
pany. We are thinking of the Fox sisters, and of 
Holmes and Palladino. To begin with, the necroman- 
cers of ancient days, as well as the shamans of savage 
tribes and fakirs of India, have ever been guilty of 
deception, even when the powers were genuine. The 
medicine-men of the South Sea Islands who were con- 
verted to Christianity have confessed that the trance 
state in which they exercised power of clairvoyance 
was at times mere pretense, but at the same time 
admitted that they frequently were actually uncon- 
scious and acting under some hidden impulse. (G. H. 
von Schubert, Geschichte der Seele, p. 52.) In the 
St. Louis Globe-Democrat of May 21, 1904, a strange 
bit of reminiscence was offered by a Presbyterian min- 
ister attending a convention, concerning the devil and 
Spiritism. He gave it as it had been told to him by a 
trustworthy man of science, a profound student of half 
a century or more ago, who became one of the founders 
of the Smithsonian Institute. To this scientist an 
Indian in the northwest country made confession, after 
he became a Presbyterian, of the methods he had used 
in invoking the spirits. He had been a medium, and 



SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 103 

when lie was within the cabinet most unearthly sounds 
of drum-beating, cries of wild animals and a multitu- 
dinous din filled the air. "This Indian, in his confes- 
sion, declared that he had not used any occult mechan- 
ism or any sleight-of-hand performance to make the 
sounds within the cabinet, but as soon as he got inside 
he had begun with all his might to 'pray to the devil.' 
This was the poor Indian's only method. He firmly 
believed that it was the devil who produced the sounds, 
and while the scientist did not vouch for the absolute 
truth of this, nor could he say how much of a part 
so-called subconsciousness played in the matter, he was 
convinced that the Indian at least thought he was 
telling the truth." Yet these Indian medicine-men 
have been detected numberless times in clumsy decep- 
tion. 

In the second place, the student of Spiritistic 
records can not fail to observe that a "developed" 
medium possesses an intense desire to get into com- 
munication with the spirits, and literally trembles with 
eagerness to comprehend and transmit their messages. 
Besides, she has an interest in convincing the sitters 
that she has spirit information for them. What is 
more natural than that the mediums will endeavor to 
help out with a trick the impressiveness of the phe- 
nomena, when the spirit control is weak, or even cause 
rappings, automatic writing, and other phenomena, 
by conscious deception, when the conditions are un- 
favorable and the spirits do not respond? Finally, 
proceeding on the belief that the communicators are 
demons, the lying practises of mediums are exactly 
what one would expect from such agencies. "While 
the physical phenomena have in many cases been 
proven undoubtedly genuine, the whole system is a 
mass of artful lies, with impersonations of the dead, 



104 SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

often fictitious information and false religious teaching. 
The fact that many phenomena can not be performed 
except in the dark room is, of course, a frequent 
occasion of fraud, yet we can well understand that 
even genuine manifestations would require darkness 
as a necessary condition. The sorcerers and medicine- 
men of all ages have sought the darkness of a hut or 
cave for their performances. If we knew the full 
truth of those Scriptural expressions which refer to 
Satan as the prince of darkness, we should very 
probably better understand why the exclusion of the 
light of day is necessary for some of these practises. 

3. Does Not, After All, Telepathy Enter into 
the Phenomena Described? 

This is a complex subject. Let us first clear up 
some of the concepts involved. Telepathy is the term 
employed to describe that action of the mind by which 
it receives, without any known medium of communi- 
cation, often unconsciously, ideas from another mind. 
It must be noted that there are many students of 
psychology who deny that there is such a thing as 
" telepathy . " But, granting that there is, how is our 
problem affected thereby? Telepathy assumes that 
there is in every person a conscious mind and an un- 
conscious mind ; to the latter — of the existence of which 
we are hardly aware — ideas are said to be communi- 
cated from the mind of another person. This, accord- 
ing to the theory, is the telepathic process. Now, to 
what extent is it conceivable that the information 
which mediums convey has been received by them 
through ''telepathy"? Let us admit that in this 
manner — always supposing that there is such a thing 
as "telepathy" — the entranced medium might gain 
knowledge of some facts known to some person present. 



SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 105 

But the theory breaks down when mediums are able 
to convey messages in which there is a reference to 
facts or events unknown to any person present, and 
which must be verified by research or correspondence. 
I know that such communications — their reality has 
been established beyond question — are explained by 
some psychologists by supposing that the subconscious 
(subliminal) mind of one person may convey informa- 
tion to a second person through the subconscious mind 
of a third. For instance, if A (now deceased) had 
knowledge of a hidden object, he may have conveyed 
this knowledge by telepathy to B, who remains un- 
conscious of this knowledge, but passes on this 
knowledge to C, the medium in her trance state. How- 
ever, this presumes a telepathy which is almost om- 
niscient, and Spiritists rightly contend that a man 
who believes in such an extension of the telepathic 
theory ought not to find it difficult to believe in spirits I 
An example is quoted by Dr. Carpenter as a prob- 
able case of ideas latent in the mind of the sitter 
having found expression through the medium. It is 
this: Rev. Mr. Dibdin relates in the Quarterly Review 
the experience of a gentleman who was experimenting 
with the table. The spirit claimed to be that of the 
poet Young. It was asked to give some evidence of 
its identity. This line was spelled out: 

"Man was not made to question, but adore." 

Asked if the line was in Night Thoughts, the reply 
was, "No." Asked, "Where then?" the answer was, 
"Job." The gentleman could not recall the fact that 
he had ever read that poem, but when he referred 
to his own copy of Young, he saw that he had read 
it, and had noted that line. {Lutheran Quarterly, 
1894, p. 19.) 



106 SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

Now, if the messages announced by mediums were 
all of such a character, the telepathic hypothesis might 
be accepted as an explanation. But since information 
is often conveyed which could not possibly be within 
reach of the mind of the medium or of the sitters, 
and the correctness of which is only ascertained on 
subsequent inquiry, the theory breaks down. Further- 
more, if there is only a mysterious mental force active 
in these trance states, then how shall we explain their 
degrading physical and moral effects, how explain the 
antichristian teachings which are invariably conveyed, 
and how account for the physical phenomena described 
(direct writing, rappings, levitations, etc.), the occur- 
rence of which is now generally admitted? 

4. is the ouija-board; always an agency of 
Communication with Spirits? 

No. Suggestion and auto-suggestion will probably 
explain the intelligence which the board so frequently 
displays. Yet it is certain that by the use of this 
contrivance the avenues are opened to influences which 
may grow on the operator before their nature is 
recognized. Raupert says: "The door which by these 
various practises is apt to be easily and readily opened, 
is not so easily shut." It is the state of passiveness 
necessary in the operation of the board that facilitates 
the invasion of unseen influences, and prepares the way 
for "a form of spirit control which is apt to be most 
subtle and complex in its character, and of the opera- 
tion of which he may himself remain unconscious for 
a considerable period of time." The story is told by 
a noted British lawyer that his daughters, aged eleven 
and fourteen years, took up the ouija-board out of 
amusement in the evening after lessons. They did not 
regard it seriously, but rather as a game. For a time 
nothing of importance was received, but all of a sud- 



SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 107 

den, early in March, 1918, when these children were 
sitting, messages began to "come through " that were 
"serious, sensible, reliable, connected, and vividly 
real." They were short, and mostly from relatives 
who had "passed over." These girls, and also their 
father, have ever since been devoted Spiritists. 

The case is cited of a minister who took up auto- 
matic writing. At first the communications were pure, 
and expressed in beautiful language. After a time 
they became mixed with obscene language. Then he 
heard voices, and things so preyed on his mind that he 
became insane, and died in three months, raving mad. 

But Sir Conan Doyle speaks of automatic writing 
as "perhaps the most satisfactory means of communi- 
cation." He must know something of the dangers 
attending it, because he tells his readers, in a vague 
sort of way, that this kind of thing "can be overdone." 
The well-established fact, of course, is that this appar- 
ently harmless form of communication is the most 
dangerous one of all. "For," says one observer, "while 
this writing in its various forms can be readily induced 
and progressively developed, it can not be so easily 
shaken off. In most instances the experimenter ulti- 
mately becomes the victim of the power which he called 
in operation, that power, by the incessant and madden- 
ing prompting itself, disclosing itself as anything but 
a kindly relative or friend." 

There is no form of human research that so readily 
becomes a morbid craving which consumes its victims 
both in body and soul. J. G. Raupert says in Modern 
Spiritism-. "It seems as though each single new experi- 
ment created but an appetite for a further and better 
one, and went but to stimulate that well-known 'crav- 
ing for phenomena' which can never be stilled. There 
are thousands of persons in England at this present 



108 SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

time who pass from seance to seance and from medium 
to medium, incessantly on the hunt after fresh evidence, 
and ceaselessly seeking for new and more exciting 'de- 
velopments.' " 

Here, as everywhere, the rule holds that "begin- 
nings must be resisted." The ouija-board is a recog- 
nized contrivance for spirit communication. Even 
were its "communications" in every case due to "sub- 
conscious action" of the manipulator, its association 
with Spiritism would still be sufficient reason for Chris- 
tians to keep, literally, "hands off," and to banish it 
from their homes. "Touch not, handle not!" 

5. Why do the "Intelligences" Introduce Them- 
selves as Souls of the Departed? 

The question is an easy one to answer. If the 
demons would introduce themselves as such, and at 
once reveal their hatefulness and depravity in order 
to certify their true character, there would be an end 
of seances, would there not? But if they can not 
afford to declare their identity, whom can they per- 
sonate in the spirit world except angels and the souls 
of the dead? 

6. What is Meant by the State of Passivity 
Which Has Been Called the "Key-note of All 
Spiritistic Phenomena"? 

The passivity referred to is both mental and moral, 
and may be physical. Passivity means a state of re- 
ceptiveness, of being open to influences, by keeping 
the mind unemployed, either absolutely, as in the 
hypnotic trance, or relatively, as when the mind is 
centered on one object to the exclusion of all others. 
Let us assume that a person is eager for spirit com- 
munications (this is the moral passivity, in which con- 
science no longer warns against the sin of communi- 
cation with "the dead") ; add to this a state of mental 



SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 109 

abstraction, in which the sitter (and also, of course, 
the medium) is occupied with no other thought than 
this: When will my friend begin to speak? What will 
be his message? — and we have a condition favorable 
for the action of the unseen powers. If, in addition, 
there is a state of physical passivity (i. e., the trance 
state), the possibilities are immeasurably heightened. 
What is the trance 6 ! The mediumistic trance is "a 
state of insensibility or unconsciousness of whose nature 
we know little or nothing." (Hyslop.) It is similar 
in most respects to the hypnotic trance, from which it 
generally differs in that it is produced by the person in 
question (auto-hypnosis), or comes upon it without 
known causation. Now, in this trance state the brain 
is left temporarily uncontrolled, and in such a con- 
dition the "intelligences" (spirits) "invade the soul 
and occupy it with varying degrees of control." When 
the control is very complete, occultists speak of "devel- 
oped," "highly developed," mediums. What happens 
then is readily understood if the actions of an ordi- 
narily "hypnotized" person are analyzed. In this 
state the subject is under the influence of the hypno- 
tizer's will; his individuality is, so to say, merged with 
the hypnotizer 's ; he knows the unspoken thoughts of 
the operator, and acts in accordance with them. At 
the same time there may be a supranormal increase 
of powers (clairvoyance). And this state, which locks 
the doors of sense, may open an avenue for the influ- 
ence of unseen forces. Dr. G. Barth (Lebensmagne- 
tismus, 1852) said that in cases which came under his 
personal observation the trance state opened a way 
to influences from the spirit world, the awful and 
destructive results of which he had to correct in the 
performance of his duties as a physician. Dr. G. H. 
von Schubert likewise warns against experimenting 



110 SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

with hypnotism, since in the hypnotic sleep "he who 
desires contact with the world of demons has the 
ability to practise such communications. ' ' 

The eagerness of evil spirits to enter into com- 
munication with men should be remembered in this 
connection. This eagerness is, to my mind, the most 
terrible characteristic of the reports of successful 
seances. The case, referred to in another chapter, 
of a young man who merely pretended to communicate 
with the spirits, and who suddenly became aware of 
another personality becoming associated with his own, 
and speaking through his voice, is highly significant. 

Add to such tampering with the normal mind a 
depraved moral character, and a state of mind is easily 
developed which creates a bond of affinity with the 
evil intelligences, who, by reason of this affinity, gain 
a closer access to the soul. 

Mr. Raupert is unquestionably right when he says: 
"The grave peril to which the rash and unwary expose 
themselves in entering on these experiments must be 
apparent to the most superficial thinker. The door of 
the mind once thrown open, either by the practise of 
mediumship or by sin and passion, access to the person- 
ality by the unseen spirit-agent becomes a compara- 
tively easy matter; and the degree in which this access 
is effected depends largely on the physical health and 
the general mental and moral condition of the victim. 
. . . The fact of this domination is also confirmed by 
the circumstance that the victims of these preternatural 
1 controls ' frequently come to their senses when the 
climax of this demoniac invasion has been reached, 
and the moral downfall has been accomplished. They 
then often awaken from what they themselves describe 
as a trance-like state, and can not recognize themselves 
in the situation in which their fall has placed them. 



SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED. Ill 

They are apt to assert emphatically that it was not 
their true self, but some hidden and unsuspected power 
in them, which somehow gained the mastery, and which 
unbalanced and paralyzed the true self." 

7. Why Do Men of High Scientific Standing 
Fall Prey to the Seduction of This Cult? 

When the list of those who are prominent in the 
movement is carefully scanned it will appear that they, 
one and all, before their conversion to Spiritism, had 
been either skeptics or declared infidels. Alfred R. 
Wallace, as a young man, rejoiced in the works of 
Voltaire, Strauss and Karl Vogt, and himself says that 
he "became a thorough and confirmed materialist." 
J. Arthur Hill, one of the British leaders, declares 
that he was a Huxleyan agnostic before he took up 
Spiritism. Arthur Conan Doyle confesses that he 
disbelieved in "the whole idea of immortality." Ella 
Wheeler Wilcox was an infidel long before she became 
a Spiritist. Those who reject the true religion of 
Christ fall a prey to the sinister forces that tilt tables 
and write between slates. Luther hit the nail on the 
head when, commenting on Luke 16 : 31, he remarks : 
"Whoever will not hear Moses and the prophets, may 
hear the devil pretending to speak through the dead." 
(XIIL, p. 2146.) 



CHAPTER EIGHT. 

Doctrines of Demons. 

SPIRITISM is a religion. It professes to instruct 
man in his relations to the Invisible and Eternal. 
It is recognized as a religious sect in our Government 
statistics. 

Spiritists have meeting-places in which some sort 
of religious service is conducted. Some mediums dis- 
play signs bearing the announcement: "Church of 
Christ, Spiritualist," or ' ' Theonomistic Church," or 
"Spiritualistic Chapel." Elsewhere we find that lodge- 
halls are rented for certain hours on Sunday by the 
cult, and sometimes meetings are conducted regularly 
at the home of some member. In Great Britain, says 
J. Arthur Hill, there are at least 350 societies holding 
Sunday services, and about forty of these own their 
places of worship. 

At Spiritistic meetings for worship, there is gener- 
ally a demonstration of mediumistic powers, generally 
by clairvoyance and clairaudience, some hymns are 
sung, prayers spoken, and generally a lecture is de- 
livered on some teaching of the cult. 

What are the religious tenets of Spiritism? 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creed may be summar- 
ized thus: 

I believe in the existence of angels; I believe in a 
painless death and an immediate entrance into life; 
I believe that the wicked will not be severed from 

112 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 113 

God forever, but will enter, not a permanent hell, but 
a temporary purgatory, where they will be purged from 
their sin; I believe that we may look for a new reve- 
lation through some new Jesus, who shall break the 
veil that still hides the future life from the present; 
I believe that what we hitherto were obliged to take 
on faith we may now touch and handle and see; I 
believe that the Christian faith will be much modified 
and changed by this new and scientifically demon- 
strated revelation. 

In a pamphlet entitled The Seven Principles of 
Spiritualism, by the secretary of the British Spiritual- 
ists' National Union (Mr. Hanson G. Hey), the doctrinal 
position of the cult is described as follows: 

"Spiritualism teaches us that we are spirits now, as 
much as ever we shall be, though temporarily inhabiting 
these tenements of clay, for purposes of experience. 

"We have no creed, no dogmas, but we have a set 
of principles. . . . They are seven in number, and 
we assert that whoever embraces these principles, assim- 
ilates them, and expresses them in his life, needs no 
other compass to steer his bark o'er the troubled waters 
of religious, political, social or industrial life. 

"They are as follows: 1. The fatherhood of God. 
2. The brotherhood of man. 3. Continuous existence. 
4. Communion of spirits and ministry of angels. 5. Per- 
sonal responsibility. 6. Compensation and retribution 
hereafter for good or ill done on earth. 7. A path of 
endless progression. 

"We assert that no man, however good, deserves 
absolute bliss for the good he can do in the short space 
of this earthly career; and no man, however bad, de- 
serves the other extreme. For, after all, man is but 
finite ; therefore, anything he may do here is finite, be it 



114 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

good or ill." (Quoted by J. A. Hill, in Spiritualism, 
p. 180f.) 

Spiritists distinctly assert the supremacy of reason 
in all religious matters. There is no inspired Bible, 
inerrant, and complete in its religious contents; Spirit- 
ism has demonstrated to the senses the reality of the 
life beyond. It is a science. Its teachings are as 
well established as any other facts arrived at by induc- 
tion. Such is the position of Spiritism, both in Amer- 
ica and abroad. 

In his A Vindication of Spiritualism, Mr. Herman 
E. Hoch writes: "Were I not so thoroughly convinced 
that I am on the right track, and that Spiritualism 
is the only sure foundation for a true philosophy and 
a pure religion, I would give heed to your well-meant 
admonition and do as you advise. If you knew Spirit- 
ualism as I understand it, you would see that it is 
the only system of religion and philosophy that is in 
harmony with the whole order of nature; it is the only 
religion that has a scientific basis; it is the only system 
of belief that depends on facts. ' ' 

He inveighs against the ministers of the church: 
"It is only the bias-minded, creed-blinded ministers 
of the orthodox pulpits, who know nothing of the 
philosophy and the phenomena of Spiritualism, and 
who have never read a book on psychology or occult 
science, who have the asinine foolishness in these days 
of advanced thought to denounce and belittle the 
stupendous phenomena of spirit return. I have no 
patience with those opinionated orthodox preachers who 
keep hammering away at the old, mossback, nightmare 
dogma of vicarious atonement. I will not accept any- 
thing simply on faith. I must know before I can 
believe." Quoting a sentence from Ingersoll, he ex- 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 115 

claims: "Banish me from Eden when you will, but let 
me eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge!" 

To Mr. Hoch historic, orthodox Christianity, which 
has been the illuminator and civilizer of the nations 
of the earth, and the renovating power, the life, com- 
fort, joy and hope of millions of souls for nineteen 
centuries, is nothing but a "gross, cruel, nightmare 
dogma," and he substitutes for it the demon-worship 
called Spiritualism, as "the only [and pure] religion." 

Mr. Harrison D. Barrett, president of the (Amer- 
ican) National Spiritualist Association, wrote in 1902 : 
"Recognizing truth alone as their leader, the followers 
of Spiritualism steadfastly refused to accept any re- 
ligious postulates on faith, and at the very outset 
rejected all creeds and dogmatic assumptions of the- 
ology as stumbling-blocks in their pathway. They were 
in search of that which was true, demonstrable by the 
evidence of fact. Reason was accepted as a helper 
in their work, and every proposition was brought to 
its bar, carefully analyzed and fitted into its proper 
niche in the economy of thought, ere any conclusion 
was announced. By this method of procedure certain 
well-defined principles were presented to man's con- 
sciousness that have proved themselves over and over 
again to be axiomatic facts. These truths need no creed 
to explain them, nor was man required to accept them 
on faith, nor to take them by the rushlight of hope. 
His mind was illumined by the electric lamp of knowl- 
edge, and his understanding was the judge of the 
evidence presented to him. He was led step by step 
through phenomena, science and philosophy, up to the 
realm of religion, where he found the eternal verities 
upon which he could build the temple of the soul in 
the calm assurance that it would stand forever as the 



116 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

one place in which all of the children of men could 
find spiritual knowledge." 

J. Arthur Hill writes: "Christ brought life and 
immortality to light by rising from the dead and 
appearing to, and communicating with, His followers. 
These first believers were honest men who had not 
been sophisticated to the extent of disbelieving the 
unusual; men who trusted their senses and believed 
their report as we do in ordinary affairs. So with the 
early Spiritualists. They found facts which indicated 
survival. They brought life and immortality to light 
once more; not by one unique instance, but by multi- 
tudes of instances, though mostly not of the same order 
as that great early one. The modern phenomena are, 
for the most part, in a lower key than those of the 
Gospel records; but they amply confirm and justify 
the belief which was based on the events there de- 
scribed. These phenomena Spiritualists make the basis 
of their philosophy and religion, as the early Christians 
did with their experiences." (Spiritualism, p. 28.) 

The late rise of Spiritism as a religious system is 
accounted for on the basis of evolutionary develop- 
ment: "It may seem strange that we have had to wait 
nearly nineteen hundred years for a recurrence of this 
kind of fact ; or, rather, for adequate recognition of it — 
for it is probable that these things have always been 
happening more or less without receiving systematic 
attention. But there is no doubt a reason for it. Each 
age has its own function in the scheme of evolution, 
and it can not attend to everything. It is only in the 
fullness of time that each new advance is made." 
(Hill, ibid., p. 29.) 

While denying the inspiration and authority of the 
Bible, Spiritists, especially within the last decade, as- 
sert that not only are mediumistic phenomena recorded 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 117 

in both Testaments, but that also the teachings of the 
Bible bear a Spiritistic interpretation. Spiritistic 
mediums have received " revelations ' ' from St. Paul, 
the apostle's spirit interpreting his epistles in a psychic 
sense chapter for chapter and verse for verse. St. 
Peter has supplied an interpretation of the Gospel 
according to Mark, and St. John an exposition of the 
Book of Revelation. Everywhere the teachings of 
Spiritism are imported into the sacred text. The 
"spiritual gifts" (1 Cor. 12) are explained as a 
reference to mediums. Verse 4: "There are diversities 
of gifts, but the same Spirit:" there are different 
kinds of mediumship produced by the same spiritual 
law; clairvoyants and physical phenomena are referred 
to in verse 10: "The working of miracles, prophecy, 
discerning of spirits, divers kinds of tongues." 1 Cor. 
14 : 26 is made to refer to the revelations and inter- 
pretations obtained in the seance. The appearances 
of Christ after his resurrection referred to in the 
Gospels are accepted as instances of materialization. 
The liberation of the apostles from prison (Acts 5 and 
16) is reported as dematerializations (enabling bodies 
to penetrate solid substances). Clairvoyances and 
clairaudiences are disclosed in the appearance of Philip 
to the eunuch, the vision of Ananias at Damascus, and 
in similar narratives. The walking of Christ on the 
Sea of Galilee is an example of levitation. 

When you tell a Spiritist that the Bible strictly 
forbids any efforts to enter into communication with 
the departed, and quote to him such passages as Lev. 
19 : 31, ' ' Turn ye not unto them that have familiar 
spirits," he will reply: "Yes, but that prohibition 
was intended only for the Jews! In the same nine- 
teenth chapter of Leviticus God gives instructions for 
offering a ram as a sacrifice in a certain kind of sin, 



118 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

and forbids the Jews to use clothing consisting of two 
kinds of stuff mingled together. Do you wish to assert 
that these prohibitions and laws are binding on us 
to-day? And if not, how can it be maintained that 
verse 31 is binding?" (J. Arthur Hill.) This at first 
sight looks like a pretty successful evasion. But let 
us look into Deuteronomy, chapter 18, where the same 
prohibition is repeated: "There shall not be found 
among you a consulter with familiar spirits." This 
chapter distinctly says that Spiritistic practises were 
not only wrong for the Jews, but that precisely on 
account of their Spiritistic abominations God would 
drive out the Canaanites before the children of Israel 
(v. 12). Hence, even when found among the heathen, 
Spiritistic practises were an abomination unto the 
Lord, and the prohibition of such "consulting of 
spirits" was by no means only part of the ceremonial 
law. Attempts to communicate with the spirits is here 
clearly stigmatized as a heathen practise. Other con- 
siderations, of course, point to the same conclusion, 
but Deut. 18 : 12-14 is absolute proof that efforts to 
enter into communication with the spirits of the 
departed are an offense against Biblical morality, and 
are an abomination in the sight of God. 

What have Spiritists to say about the person of 
Jesus Christ and His mission? On the whole, they 
deny His deity, and their prevailing doctrine is that 
He was nothing more than a powerful medium. "I 
do not find," says Gerald Massey, a leading Spiritist, 
"that Christ claimed for Himself more than he held 
out as possible for others. When He identified Himself 
with the Father, it was in the oneness of mediumship — 
He was the great Medium or Mediator." "The 
miraculous conception of Christ," says another, "is 
merely a fabulous tale," and still another assigns to 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 119 

Him a dual nature, not divine and human, but male 
and female. It is advanced with special emphasis by 
the sect of T. L. Harris, and some English Spiritists 
announced the speedy epiphany of a female Messiah, 
"the second Eve and the Mother of all living." "The 
idea of a good God," wrote Mr. Stainton-Moses, "sacri- 
ficing His sinless Son as a propitiation for man is 
repudiated as monstrous." (Higher Aspects of Spirit- 
ualism, p. 104.) In place of this it is said that man 
can have no savior outside of himself. 

Mr. Barrett propounds the seven religious teachings 
of Spiritism, which are in essence the same as those 
announced by Mr. Hey, quoted in the beginning of this 
chapter. Concerning his seventh principle (identical 
with Hey's fifth — "Personal Responsibility") he says: 

"Spiritualism's seventh principle is self -salvation. 
By it man is made his own savior, and he has no 
chance whatever to act the coward by casting the 
responsibility for his evil-doing on another. He must 
meet the consequences for good or evil of his every 
act or thought. He can not gain a seat in heaven 
through the merits of another. As he sows, so must 
he reap, and if he would escape a future filled with 
keen suffering and bitter regret, he must save himself 
from all forms of evil while yet in mortal form. 
Spiritualism teaches him to fill his soul with love for 
humanity, even as the flower stores its heart with 
sunshine that it may burst forth in rich fragrance for 
the good of others. An enlightened conscience, quick- 
ened by the unseen soul-self, is ever with him to 
prompt him aright, if he will but listen to its low, 
sweet voice. He must do right for right's sake; be 
good for the sake of goodness, just for the sake of 
justice; honest, not from any dictates of policy, but 



120 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

from a keen sense of honor. Then will his salvation 
be assured through his own efforts." 

There can be no more outright denial of salvation 
through the merits of our divine Redeemer Jesus 
Christ. 

Another Spiritist exclaims: "What a wicked and 
soul-destroying delusion has been the clerical farce of 
salvation by a vicarious atonement ! ' ' And the familiar 
of "M. A. Oxon" declared: "Sin is remediable by 
repentance and atonement and reparation personally 
wrought out in pain and shame, not by coward cries 
for mercy, and by feigned assent to statements which 
ought to create a shudder." 

Sir Conan Doyle tells us that we must "con- 
centrate more upon Christ's life and much less upon 
His death," etc. In his book he develops this thought 
more fully, and tells us that since there never was a 
Fall there could be no need of atonement and redemp- 
tion, and that "one can see no justice in vicarious 
sacrifice, nor in the God who could be placated by 
such means." Now, what is this but "a making void of 
the cross of Christ," as St. Paul puts it, and a relapsing 
into paganism? For if any fact is clear from history 
it is the fact that the doctrine of the atoning and 
redeeming death of the Son of God is a fundamental 
primitive truth of Christianity. Strangely enough, 
however contradictory the "communications" are on all 
other religious topics, in this they all agree : There is no 
salvation by the blood of Christ. Raupert has this: 
"It is certainly a remarkable fact that on this point 
the higher intelligences are strangely unanimous and 
emphatic in their statements, and all Spiritualists are 
agreed." (Op. cit., p. 220.) Remarkable indeed! It is 
to me the strongest proof that the spirits which cause 
the Spiritistic phenomena are of Satan's crew. Where 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 121 

agreement is on one point only — namely, that the 
historic Christian doctrine respecting the nature and 
character of Redemption is an imposition, the " fabric 
of an artificial scholastic philosophy" — the source of 
such a system is surely demoniacal. 

Quackenbos writes: "Spiritism not only looks to 
disembodied spirits for advice and guidance, but it 
denies that Jesus died for our sins or made any atone- 
ment therefor. It regards Christ as a healing medium, 
flouts His divinity, and loses sight of Him in a crowd 
of benevolent demons, explaining His miracles as 'the 
results of a natural law of which His mediumistic 
power enabled Him to avail Himself.' . . . Like The- 
osophy, it forces a feminine principle into the God- 
head; and some of its professors have announced the 
coming of a female Messiah, a second Eve, the divine 
mother of all the living. To a select few, behind 
locked doors at an ' inner circle of the Mystery of the 
Divine Presence,' Christ is asserted to have revealed 
Himself with a female figure standing beside Him, a 
celestial feminine personality. God is made dual, He 
and She, as much woman as man, Mother as well as 
Father — 'an hermaphrodite spirit cleft in twain and 
manifested in two outward forms.' The worship of the 
Babylonian Istar, the Lady Queen of Heaven, corre- 
sponding to the Egyptian Isis, has been revived in the 
very shadow of our churches." (Quoted in Lehre und 
Wehre, 1900, p. 143.) 

It is true that we find the most divergent and 
even contradictory views — spirit teachings — concerning 
the person of Jesus Christ. He is God and He is not 
God. He is mystically the second person of the blessed 
Trinity. He is God in the sense that we are all emana- 
tions of the divine nature. And He is no more divine 



122 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

than was Mahomet, and He never claimed to be God. 
But, worst of all, the most blasphemous things that 
could possibly be conceived have been written about 
Him, under alleged spirit guidance. 

The Spiritist stands forth as the champion of the 
spirituality of man. Man, he repeatedly proclaims, 
is a spirit. Man, we are told, hardly counts till he 
has become disincarnate. The spirit world is the only 
world that matters. But, while making much of man's 
"spiritual" self, he denies the personality, and some 
deny the very existence, of God. One of them does 
not hesitate to express himself in the Westminster 
Review as follows: "We have ceased to embody the 
conception of the state in a person, and it is time that 
we should cease similarly to embody the conception of 
the universe." This author has a universe without an 
Author or Ruler. Further on he says: "In like 
manner loyalty to a divine person will some day become 
extinct as a manifestation of the feeling which ought 
to sway us in our relations to that whole, whereof we 
form so significant a part, but its place will be taken 
by a conscious and cheerful accordance with the laws 
which make for the well-being of the universe." Of 
course, this is simple atheism. 

The atheistic position is often discoverable under 
phrases which have a pantheistic flavor. As in the 
following opinion, written automatically by "one on 
the other side," and quoted with approval by a Spirit- 
ist writing in the Chicago Record-Herald, Jan. 3, 1902: 
"My friend, if you would but see and understand 
what is the purpose of life, you would know how fatal 
it would be to allow any and every cry for direction 
and guidance and help to be answered. The object of 
life is to evoke, to develop the God within." 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 123 

''Brahma, Buddha, Jupiter and Jehovah must all 
vanish before the glories of our new religion," is the 
boast of H. Tuttle in his Arcana. 

The spirits are made objects of worship in the 
Sunday (devotional) meetings of Spiritists. J. Arthur 
Hill writes: "Next came a prayer by a wounded 
soldier who assisted Mr. Tyrell on the platform: 'Out 
of the vault of matter and unripened experience, we 
approach Thee, who art the great controlling and 
dominating power in the universe. To-night we are 
desirous for one short hour of approaching and holding 
communion with those who, having passed through that 
momentary eclipse called death, by Thy immutable laws 
are permitted to return through the minds of mediums, 
and manifest that presence to us. We thank you that 
in your providential capacity you have so permitted 
us this privilege, but we are glad that this may be 
something more than the monopoly of a few — that this 
can become the common experience of each one of us. 
"We thank you, dear spirit friends, for continually 
coming to aid and abet us. We ask you further to 
extend that love to us to-night, that we may impart 
that glorious knowledge which it has been our comfort 
to receive. We are desirous of impressing upon the 
minds of all the knowledge that life after death is a 
certainty. We do this as a means to an end that they 
will, as a result of that experience, recognize that the 
phenomena are the finger-post and indication to a 
higher state of being. We desire, then, individually 
and co-operatively to endeavor to materialize these 
ideals which are associated with their lives into this 
very real world that we live in to-day. We are desirous 
of doing so much, yet circumstances permit so little. 
We are desirous of removing poverty, superstition, war, 
vice and crime, and all those things which menace 



124 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

humanity in their path towards progress. That is why 
spirits come to us. That is their highest desire and 
ideal, when, freed from the bondage of time and sense, 
freed from the struggle for bread and butter and 
economic circumstances, they seek to come back and 
co-operate with us to make this world we live in a 
much better one. We also ask you to go amongst 
those who are in any way in trouble. May you all, I 
implore you, extend that sympathy, that passivity, 
towards our brother, that you will afford those condi- 
tions that will demand the best from him, that by his 
results we shall have the highest form of manifestation 
known." (J. A. Hill, Spiritualism, p. 185f.) This is 
certainly offering worship to demons. Denying the 
invisible God, Spiritists have turned to the Evil One 
and his host, and are, in essence, a sect of Devil-wor- 
shipers. 

The system of morality in vogue among adherents 
of the cult is on a par with its religion. "By their 
fruits ye shall know them." There is, of course, much 
highly moral verbiage in the communications of the 
spirits. Many platitudes about being good and being 
kind and being cheerful and being hopeful and being 
patient, and so forth, et cetera, ad nauseam and ad 
infinitum. Nor do we charge Spiritists as a class with 
outward gross immorality. Yet the teachings emanat- 
ing from the cult are in more than one respect sub- 
versive of Christian morals. 

A very low valuation is placed on the marriage 
obligation. 

Prof. T. H. Hudson, one of the most careful writers, 
says: "I do not charge Spiritualists as a class with 
being advocates of the doctrines of free love. On 
the contrary, I am aware that, as a class, they hold 
the marriage relation in sacred regard. I can not 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 125 

forget, however, that but a few years ago some of their 
leading advocates and mediums proclaimed the doctrine 
of free love in all its hideous deformity from every 
platform in the land. The moral virus took effect 
here and there all over the country, and it is doing 
its deadly work in secret in many an otherwise happy 
home. And I charge a large and constantly growing 
class of professional mediums with being the leading 
propagandists of the doctrine of free love. They infest 
every community in the land, and it is well known 
to all men and women who are dissatisfied or unhappy 
in their marriage relations, that they can always find 
sympathy by consulting the average medium, and can, 
moreover, find justification for illicit love by invoking 
the spirits of the dead through such mediums." 
(Coombs, Religious Delusions, p. 132.) 

Professor Quackenbos, who made a special study of 
the system, pronounced this verdict: "The teachings 
of Spiritism regarding marriage are subversive of all 
respect for the sacredness of the institution as ordained 
by God. It takes the ground that every person has 
an ' affinity ' to whom he or she will eventually be 
united in the world to come, no matter how disap- 
pointing the search for this affinity may be on earth. 
The evils of wedded life are due to the union of persons 
who are not such spiritual affinities. Ill-assorted mar- 
ried couples are at liberty to separate. Divorce is 
justified as soon as companionship becomes for any 
reason disagreeable or undesirable. Thus the union of 
hearts after God's holy ordinance is degraded to a 
living together like beasts in a lair: and a man may 
break his marriage vows ad infinitum in the pursuit 
of his spiritual affinity. In this way encouragement 
is given to licentiousness; a formal marriage finally 
becomes unnecessary, and men and women literally 



126 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

wrap themselves in the filthy skirts of Ashtoreth. 
Spiritism asserts that every one will be married in the 
next world, and that the mates or affinities of those who 
remain single on earth live in waiting in the spirit-land. 
Hence it affects to solemnize the marriage of women 
with demons. . . . 'Those in communion with a class 
of spirits above them run no risk of forming uncon- 
genial matrimonial relations, as a spirit out of the 
form can perceive affinities more readily than a person 
in the natural body; consequently, marriages formed 
by them will be happy ones, and the offspring of such, 
gentle and loving, harmonizing the future.' " (Quoted 
in Lehre unci Wehre, 1900, p. 146 f.) 

Andrew Jackson Davis wrecked a happy family in 
this affinity hunting. Leo Miller says every desire of 
the passions is a righteous desire. Dr. A. B. Child 
wrote a book which all Spiritists accepted as good 
doctrine. Here are some of its statements: "Whatever 
is, is right." "Whatever desire there is, good or so- 
called bad, is a natural desire of the soul. Vice as 
well as virtue is beautiful. Both are right." Leo 
Miller practised what he preached, and induced Mattie 
Strickland to leave her parents and follow him. The 
Spiritistic convention at Rock Island, Ills., 1886, de- 
clared: "There is no such thing as moral obligation. 
Vice is as good as virtue." (Coombs, op. cit., p. 180.) 

Victoria Woodhull, whose advocacies of free love 
became too indecent to be endured by the State author- 
ities, became president of the National Spiritualist 
Association. "Some years ago, six of the editors of 
Spiritistic papers," says Coombs, "and that is about all 
of them, were free-lovers." The Crucible was edited by 
Moses Hull, who published the fact that he was living 
with Mattie Sawyer without marriage. Mr. Hull, by 
way of defense, said: "We hold damning facts about 



DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 127 

nearly all of the Spiritualist lecturers. ' ' The editor had 
gathered these facts to prove that the other editors 
were as deep in the mire of free-lovism as he. He 
openly confessed his free-lovism. The records he 
published are too debasing to print here. In 1877 he 
advocated the abrogation of the marriage relation, and 
free, promiscuous relations of the sexes. (Coombs, 
p. 131.) 

From a Spiritualistic book, Whatever Is, Is Bight, 
circulating among a certain section of advanced Spirit- 
ualists, Algernon J. Pollock quotes the following in 
The Fundamentals, X., page 122: 

"What is evil? Evil does not exist; evil is good." 

"What is a lie? A lie is the truth intrinsically; 
it holds a lawful place in creation; it is a necessity." 

"What is vice? Vice, and virtue too, are beautiful 
in the eyes of the soul." 

"What is virtue? Virtue is good and sin is good. 
The woman who came to the well of Sychar was just 
as pure in spirit before she met Christ, even though 
she was a harlot, as she was afterwards when she went 
to live a different life. There's no difference between 
Herod, the murderer of the babies in Bethlehem, and 
Christ, the Savior of men." 

"What is murder? Murder is good. Murder is a 
perfectly natural act." 

"What are evil spirits? There are no evil spirits. 
There is no devil and no Christ. Christ and the devil 
are both alike." 

" 'For not a path on earth is trod 
That does not lead the soul to God.' " 

"No matter how bad that path may be, whether it 
be the path of a liar, the murderer, it is the path of 
divine ordination and divine destiny." 



128 DOCTRINES OF DEMONS. 

We have seen enough of the doctrines and morals 
of Spiritism to convince any honest searcher after 
truth that it is born in the abyss; that its chief head 
and leader is the devil, and that it is not only a 
wretched counterfeit, but one of the worst enemies of 
Christianity. It denies the authority of the Scrip- 
tures and the essential doctrines of Christianity — the 
deity, messiahship and atonement of Christ — and 
teaches doctrines and morals subversive of Christian 
faith and corrosive of Christian life. Its votaries may 
claim to be able to be Spiritists and at the same time 
be good Christians; but the word of God gives them 
no place in the Christian church; for "every spirit 
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the 
flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of anti- 
christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come ; and 
even now already is it in the world" (1 John 4:3). And 
the holy God has declared once for all time: "There 
shall not be found among you a consulter with familiar 
spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer; for all that do 
these things are an abomination to the Lord" (Deut. 
18; 11, 12). 



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